


Ricochet

by heartstrings



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, First Time, Happy Ending, M/M, Partners in Crime, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-28
Updated: 2018-12-03
Packaged: 2019-04-14 05:44:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 40,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14129346
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heartstrings/pseuds/heartstrings
Summary: It takes one moment for Patrick's entire life to change and keep changing. Used to being forgotten and alone he finds a kindred spirit in Jonny, who has troubles of his own. Together they take on the world, dime store gas stations, reckless runaways, and whatever they can fit into their pockets.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Big thanks to my beta boodreaus for all her help! You're the best.
> 
> If you enjoy images/visual aids when reading fic I made an aesthetic tag on my blog for inspiration. You can check that out **[here](http://officialhilaryknight.tumblr.com/tagged/ricochet-%27verse)**. I'll be adding to it as I make updates too.
> 
> Warnings: There are mentions of child abuse, but in my opinion they aren't graphic, however your mileage may vary. If you'd like to be spoiled ahead of time before reading you can also hit me up over on tumblr and I'd be happy to assuage any possible fears, if I can.

  
  


_I exist in two places. Here, and where you are._  
— Margaret Atwood  


  
  


When he’s six, Patrick goes to his first Sabres game and his father tells him, “These are the greats, son. These men right here. You want to be great? You do whatever it takes.”

“Whatever it takes,” Patrick says. He doesn’t understand what it means.

His father smiles; he sounds happy. “Whatever it takes,” he nods.

Patrick watches LaFontaine glide across the ice, the gold C bright on his jersey. He takes a shot on goal and scores. The arena is loud with shouts and cheers.

Patrick’s eyes never leave him.

*

Patrick’s father almost dies when he’s seven. Shot twice at gunpoint inside the car dealership, the news reports.

At the time, his mom tells him the gunman, Donald Nivens, is a mad man, that he’s a psycho, that he’s unhinged. Later Patrick will learn his father sold Donald Nivens a used Ford Explorer with faulty brakes. The very car Emily Nivens was driving when she and her two young sons crashed into a Toyota Corolla off the highway near Olympus. They all died instantly.

“Ten years. I hope he dies in that prison cell,” his mom says. She cries and cries and cries.

It’s the last time he’ll remember feeling truly sad for another person.

*

Patrick’s dad comes home in a wheelchair, head stitched and bandaged, mouth slanted. He doesn’t talk much, but when he does, his mouth sounds full of marbles and he’s so, so quiet. He only hugs Patrick with one loose arm.

“When will he be better?” Erica asks.

No one answers.

*

When Patrick’s nine, they have to move out of their house. His mom can’t find work and they can’t afford their bills. They move in with his uncle Neal and eat discount macaroni and hot dogs five days a week.

His mom takes care of Dad, she takes care of his sisters, and she spends most nights waitressing at a diner down the block. They don’t own a car.

Uncle Neal watches them while his mom’s at work. He gives Patrick and his sisters gifts and tells them what great kids they are. He holds his mom’s hand so tight. So tight, Neal says, so she’ll feel safe. He seems nice.

*

They move three more times in the next two years, each time to a smaller place. Most of Patrick’s things are sold for money. He hides his LaFontaine jersey, the one that’s three sizes too big, under the mattress of the bed he shares with Erica, in the room he shares with all of his sisters. She kicks him in his sleep and drools on his pillow. When Neal stays over, she curls around him tight and fidgets restlessly until she passes out.

Jackie and Jess sleep peacefully in the next bed over.

Patrick doesn’t sleep at all.

*

Sometimes, when everyone is out of the living room, Patrick will turn on a hockey game and wheel his dad next to the couch.

“The Sabres are gonna make the playoffs this year,” he says.“You think they’ll win the cup?”

His dad smiles wide, a little string of drool slipping from the corner of his mouth.

“Me too,” Patrick says, throat thick. He wipes his dad’s chin with a tissue.

*

That summer they move into Neal’s apartment.

Neal says, “Don’t touch my things.”

He says, “Don’t get in my way.”

He says, “I’m just trying to help.”

“I…I’ll tell,” Patrick says.

Neal ruffles Patrick’s hair, fingertips digging into his scalp. And then he looks over at Jessica watching TV across the room. His hand tightens.

“Okay,” Patrick says through gritted teeth. It’s hard to breathe.

*

“The next time he comes in here, hide under the bed.”

“But what about you?”

“Don’t worry about me.”

“He’ll come after you.”

“I know.”

*

His teacher asks him, “Patrick, what happened to your face?”

Patrick says, “Nothing.”

“It’s just a scratch,” Patrick says. “Street hockey. I’m so dumb.”

He laughs like broken glass until his teacher looks away.

*

One night Patrick says to his mom, “We should leave.”

He says it over and over again.

“We can’t,” she says. “Uncle Neal helps us. He pays our bills.”

Patrick screams until the neighbors start banging on their shared wall. He screams until his mom pulls him close and presses his face into her neck.

“Please,” he whispers. He scrapes his brittle fingernails into the paper-thin expanse of her arm until his knuckles turn white. “I’ll do _anything_. I’ll get a job.”

She rubs her hand over his back, up and down. Up and down.

She says, “You’re only fourteen. It’ll be okay, Patrick.”

“Don’t worry,” she says, and then goes to help feed his father his dinner.

*

For Patrick’s fifteenth birthday, they move the girls into their own room so he doesn’t have to share with them anymore.

He starts sneaking out at night after that.

*

Mark owns a dilapidated green Buick and always shares his cigarettes. Patrick meets him while he’s trying to sell a couple of joints to a senior in the parking lot after school.

“How much?”

“Twenty bucks.”

“You should charge him more than that,” Patrick breaks in. “His dad’s loaded.”

“Fuck off, kid, before I beat your pimply ass.”

He shoves at Patrick until he stumbles backwards off the curb. He keeps shoving until Patrick’s on his back on the ground, hovering over him.

Patrick pulls the switchblade he stole from Neal’s dresser out of his pocket, thumbs over the push-button until it snaps open.

He smiles all lips and no teeth. “Touch me again and I’ll carve your fucking eyeballs out of your _pimply_ head, Piss Stain.”

Mark laughs. He laughs so hard he chokes. He laughs and waves Patrick over to get in his car. He laughs and offers Patrick a cig and says, “You’re alright, bud. Let’s get out of here.”

*

The next day Patrick gets jumped in the locker room while he’s changing clothes. He’s not sure how many of them are punching him -- only that they’re silent. They rip his clothes and spit in his face until he’s clawing back and kicking one of them in the dick.

Later, Mr. Jacobs will find him huddled on the floor, bloodied and proud.

He gets suspended for a week.

*

Instead of resting at home, Patrick spends his convalescence at Mark’s apartment. He smokes too much weed and watches mindless TV and doesn’t think about school.

“I’m not going back,” Patrick says.

“School?” Mark asks.

Patrick doesn’t answer.

“Home?” Mark asks.

Patrick doesn’t answer.

*

Weeks go by and he doesn’t see his mom or dad. He avoids Neal and barely talks to his sisters.

When he does see them, he asks, “Do you have enough to eat?”

Jessica says, “Yes.”

“Are you safe?”

“Are you?” Erica says. She’s sitting across the room, arms wrapped around her folded legs. She’s wearing a long sleeved sweatshirt. It’s May.

Patrick feels bile rise in his throat. He thinks he might puke.

“Come with me,” he says instead.

“And go where?”

He looks at Erica. He looks at Jessica. He can’t look at Jackie.

*

He quits going to school and starts looking for a job. No one wants to hire a fifteen year old.

He keeps looking.

*

“You need some cash?” Mark asks. “Sell these for me and I’ll give you half.”

“I thought you usually take 70%,” Patrick says, eyeing him skeptically.

“You know you’re my favorite, bud,” Mark grins.

 _Your favorite what?_ Patrick wants to ask.

Mark runs a hand through his hair, ruffling it through his curls. Patrick leans into the touch. It feels nice.

*

When his mom finds out, she doesn’t yell, but her face is grim as she says, “You can’t quit school.”

“I can,” he says. “I did.”

“What about your future?”

Patrick laughs. “Your priorities are fucked, Mom.”

“Don’t talk to me like that,” she says. “You can’t live here and not go to school and you can’t talk to me like that, Patrick, I’m your mother.”

Something hot and vicious and sharp cuts its way through Patrick’s chest. It hurts so fiercely he wants to carve himself and everything around him apart.

He clenches his jaw until his head shakes.

“I wish…,” he says.

And then he goes to pack his things.

*

Erica and Jess are crying as he grabs his LaFontaine jersey, the one his father bought him and said: _It’s something to grow into_ , and empties out a backpack. He stuffs an extra pair of jeans, some underwear, three shirts, some socks and his jersey inside.

He kisses each of his sisters on the forehead.

“I love you. I’m sorry,” he says. “I’ll come back.”

He’s not sure even he believes his own lie.

*

There are a few nights spent with various friends from school before their parents start asking too many questions.

One night he sleeps behind the back of a church and another under some bushes in a park before hunger starts to set in.

He goes to Mark.

“There’s nowhere else,” he says, his backpack slung over his right shoulder, eyes on the ceiling.

“You smell like pine cones and dog shit,” Mark says, bored.

“Okay,” Patrick says.

“You’re not sleeping on my furniture until you shower,” he says, easy and goes back to bagging weed.

*

Mark lives in a shithole with cockroaches in his kitchen and mold on his walls. Everything smells of damp clothes and burnt hair.

Patrick sleeps a lot and doesn’t think about his future.

He bags and sells whatever Mark gives him.

On the weekends, people Patrick doesn’t know come over, party, and fall asleep all over the apartment. Patrick fools around with whoever seems interested. He drinks, smokes whatever’s free, and hides what little money he has in a Twinkie box under the floorboards in Mark’s closet. Sometimes he curls up on the floor by Mark’s bed. Sometimes he shares the bed with him, a foot apart and no extra pillow to use.

He’s hungry, but he’s not afraid.

*

When he turns sixteen, Patrick gets drunk and lets Rob or Roy or Rick fuck him over the back of the couch while he squeezes his eyes shut and presses his wet face against a cushion. It doesn’t feel good. But it’s someone touching him. It’s someone touching him without hurting him on purpose. It’s not enough, but it’s fine. It’s fine.

*

When the chasers and junkies don’t want to pay, Patrick talks them down. Or he pulls out Neal’s switchblade.

“Okay night?” Mark will say when Patrick comes home without a bloody lip or a black eye.

He runs from the cops seven times before they finally catch him.

*

The judge says, “This is your first offence. I’m only giving you community service. I don’t want to see you back here again, son.”

His probation officer says, “You need to go back to school, son.”

His mom says nothing.

Patrick stands taller than her now. He looks down at her, at the wrinkles around her eyes and the gray roots of her hair from a bad dye job.

“How are the girls?”

“They’re good. You can come see them, you know.”

 _No, I can’t_ , he thinks.

“How’s dad?”

She says, “He misses you. I miss you. You can always come home, Patrick. Please come home.”

With closed eyes and open fists, he turns away.

*

“Touch me,” Patrick says to Mark. He climbs onto Mark’s bed and on top of him.

“Touch me here.”

Mark pulls his hand away before it meets Patrick’s dick.

“Uh, no,” Mark says. “No.”

He pushes Patrick away and gets out of bed.

“Why?” Patrick says, quiet, small.

Mark laughs. It’s not unkind. He slaps Patrick on the shoulder.

“That’s not me, bud. I’m not a fag.”

Mark smiles sweetly and rubs a hand through Patrick’s hair, then exits the room.

It’s cold. His throat burns and he tries to breathe and he tries to move and his legs feel hollow as he stands.

*

Patrick leaves and thinks about never going back. He thinks of leaving and disappearing until no one can find him.

Two days later, he’s caught by the cops, again, and it doesn’t matter.

*

Neal and his sisters are with his mom at the courthouse this time. The judge is talking about misdemeanor charges and being a repeat offender and possible home confinement when Patrick sees Erica. There’s a cut on her bottom lip that’s half-healed and mottled smudges on her neck, makeup smeared over them and half-hidden by her hair.

He screams and doesn’t remember standing in the middle of the district attorney’s speech or hopping over the partition to the public gallery and attacking Neal.

He doesn’t remember shouting, _I’ll kill you_ , and _you piece of shit, you fucking sadistic shithole_ and _she’s a child_ and _they’re just kids_ and _not them, not them, not them_.

He does remember the bones in his hand cracking. He remembers the feel of flesh curling under his fingernails and warm wet running down his wrists. He remembers the arms that pull him away and the way his sister’s eyes followed him from the room.

*

Juvie teaches him five things.

He learns that he can sleep anywhere.  
He learns that chill nestles deep within your bones and never quite thaws.  
He learns that not talking is better than saying the wrong thing.  
He learns that someone being repeatedly stabbed sounds different from the movies.  
He learns that loneliness is not being alone.

*

The day he’s released, his mom comes to pick him up alone. She hugs him and kisses his hair and wipes at her eyes like she’s flitting dust off her face.

She tells him about how Jackie’s doing well in math class, how she got a nice job as a paralegal at a small law firm and that Erica’s reading _The Things They Carried_ to his dad from where Patrick left off.

They’re on the interstate for close to an hour before Patrick finally says, “Where are we going?”

“To Grandpa’s.”

“Why?”

“Because that’s where we live now,” she says.

 _And Neal?_ he wants to ask.

It’s quiet; the radio is turned down low.

His mom sniffles. She says, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“I know,” he says, but when she reaches for his hand, he slips them into the pocket of his hooded sweatshirt, rests his head against the window and watches the road go by.

*

The next day he meets up with Rick, his parole officer, and a woman named Julie.

In her office, she says, “I’m your case worker. I’ll be making unannounced and announced home visits over the next 6 months.”

She says, “Like your P.O. stated, as part of your parole you’ll have to meet with him at least once a week and re-enroll in school. No fighting, no drugs, no drinking, and for the first three months, your curfew will be 6pm. No later.”

She says, “Violation of these rules could result in more time at the Juvenile Department of Corrections. Is that understood?”

“So when you say no drugs, does that include the trafficking of them as well?”

Her lips thin into a string and Patrick laughs.

“No jokes? Alright, that’s cool, but I’m going to hard pass on the school part, thanks.”

She sighs. “This isn’t an option, Mr. Kane. You will enroll and you will attend with regularity or you will return to the system.”

“I’m already in the system.”

He can tell she wants to roll her eyes; instead she takes a long breath and slips papers back into a folder.

“I’m trying to help you. This is an opportunity. Please use it wisely.”

Patrick squints. “Okay, Judy.”

“It’s Julie.”

“Whatever,” he says.

*

His grandpa frowns at him a lot. He tells him to mow the lawn, to do the dishes, to take out the trash, to sweep the driveway, to keep busy and his head down and not make a fuss. When he talks, it’s mostly about hockey.

He sees Patrick wearing his Lafontaine jersey one evening before bed. It’s worn now, the hem fraying at the edges, a stain on the left sleeve, and now tight around the shoulders. He shakes his head.

“You should learn to take better care of your things,” he says, clipped.

Patrick nods, takes it off after he leaves. He folds it up neatly and places it under his pillow.

He doesn’t put it on again.

*

In the morning, Patrick wakes to yelling. They tell him to make his bed and shower and get dressed. They tell him to eat breakfast and do his chores and go to school. He goes to school and they tell him to be quiet and listen and do his homework. After school, they tell him to do his chores and his homework and be quiet and listen. They tell him to stay out of trouble. They tell him to eat dinner. They tell him to go to bed.

They tell him to stay in his place.

And so it goes.

Patrick loses track of the days. Everything’s a fog.

*

On Saturdays or maybe Sundays, he gets a few hours of free time. He watches TV until Erica or Jessica come in and try to fight him for the remote. He’ll nap until it gets too loud, every space filled with too many voices and he doesn’t have anything to say.

He takes walks around the neighborhood filled with people walking their dogs and playing with their kids and there’s nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.

*

And then there’s Jonathan.


	2. Chapter 2

The first time Patrick sees him, he’s standing on the sidewalk in front of an expansive two-story Tudor home and his face is being punched in by Louis from Patrick’s English class. He has a grip on Louis’s shirt, but he’s not fighting back and Patrick watches, frozen for a long moment, until a woman comes running from the house to break it up.

“Fuck you,” Louis says and darts off down the street.

“Jonathan!” the woman says, face creased and jaggedly sad. “What are you doing?”

She pulls a napkin from her pocket to dab at his bloody lip.

“I’m fine.” He tilts away and goes to sit on the porch steps. When she offers him the napkin again, he takes it and wipes at his mouth roughly.

Patrick follows the curve of Jonathan’s jaw with his eyes, the sweat along his brow, the red stain shiny on his puffy lower lip. He tries to look away.

A man comes out and sits next to Jonathan on the porch. He says, “Do you feel dizzy?”

“No.”

“Nauseous?”

“No.”

“Headache?”

“No.”

“Ears ringing?”

“No, Dad. Fucking Christ. I’m fine.”

“If that were true then you wouldn’t do this,” his father says, clasps him on the back, and then walks back into the house.

Patrick feels cemented to this spot, unable to turn away.

“Um…excuse me,” a woman with a stroller says as she tries to maneuver around him.

He jolts forward into the grass, snapped into motion. He blinks and when he looks back, Jonny’s staring at him, mouth curved up in one corner and eyes narrowed.

Patrick leaves.

*

When he next takes his walk, Jonny’s waiting for him, sitting on his porch like before, arms resting on his legs and eyes zeroed in on Patrick as he goes by.

He doesn’t say a word and neither does Patrick, but his heart trips anyway.

*

Most times Patrick walks by, Jonny’s there, sitting and staring and silent. Often times he gives Patrick the once-over, eyes trailing down his body like he can see through Patrick’s clothes to the very core of him. Other times he doesn’t look at Patrick at all, won’t meet his gaze or tilt his head. Patrick feels the heat of it on the back of his neck as he walks away.

Occasionally Patrick will find him fighting. _Again_. Sometimes he’s winning, and he makes it look almost effortless, no grace, but all skill. And sometimes, like today, he’ll stand like an immovable object butting against a rock, just taking hit after hit after hit.

One particularly hard-knuckled punch to his jaw has him folding in on himself, collapsing to the ground in a heap.

“Hey!” Patrick snaps and runs over. “Fuck off.”

“He came after me,” says the guy, moves as if he’s going to throw his fist.

Patrick pulls out his pocket knife and thumbs it open. “I said. Fuck. Off.”

“Pussy,” the guy hisses in Jonny’s general direction, but he goes.

When he’s gone, Patrick kneels down to find Jonny laughing, blood running from the cut near his eyebrow and a red, angry swelling all along the right side of his face.

“Jesus, get up,” Patrick says.

Jonny laughs again and takes Patrick’s proffered arm to help him stand.

“What’s your name?”

“Asshole.”

“Hmm. Your parents get that one from a baby book?”

Patrick rolls his eyes and doesn’t smile. Not even a little.

“You suck at fighting, you know that, right?”

“Only when I want to,” he says. “I’m Jonny.”

“I know,” Patrick says and moves to step away.

Jonny catches his wrist, fingers curling hot and gentle over his pulse point.

“Your name?”

“Joe.”

“Joe?”

“Sakic.”

Jonny’s gaze travels from his lips to his eyes. “Try again.”

“Denis.”

“Denis?”

Patrick nods. “Savard.”

Jonny runs his hand up Patrick’s arm to pull him closer.

“Wayne?” he tries and twists away, hopping backwards down the sidewalk and trying not to grin.

“Oh, come on,” Jonny says, indignant. “You aren’t even trying now. That’s fuckin’ weak.”

Patrick happily flips him off as he goes.

*

When Patrick leaves school the next day, Jonny’s waiting outside. He’s leaning up against the building, one foot on the ground and the other against the brick as if standing upright is too much effort. 

They stare at each other for a long, tense minute before Patrick takes off down the road, Jonny trailing behind him for several blocks. 

They don’t talk. They don’t even make eye contact again. And when Patrick reaches his grandpa’s house, Jonny watches him walk up the steps and disappear inside before he turns back the way he came.

This happens every day for a week.

*

That following Monday, Patrick leaves school like all of the days before until he stops at the corner of South Street, the yard beside him full of overgrown grass and a thousand swaying dandelions. Everything smells green.

“You following me?” he asks.

“I am,” Jonny smirks.

“Why?”

“Because I want to.”

“Oh, well,” Patrick says, swallowing. “You can just walk next to me then.”

Jonny’s brow furrows, curious. “Can I?”

“What,” Patrick scoffs. “Are you asking my permission now? After all of this?”

“No. Just waiting for a name, remember?”

Jonny’s tall, his face a door he’s learned to lock, but he leaves very little space between them, and Patrick doesn’t mind. He traces the cluster of moles above Jonny’s chin with his eyes and thinks of tiny galaxies.

“You haven’t earned it yet.”

“But I will,” Jonny says. 

His smile makes something tremor and burn inside Patrick’s gut almost painfully. He looks away.

*

Some days Jonny will spend their entire walk guessing Patrick’s name. _Ryan_? No. _Kyle_? No. _Tyler_? No. _Benjamin_? No. _Jacob_? No. _Leonard_? Hell no. _Milton_? NO. _Aloysius_?

“That’s not even a real name?!” Patrick says, coughing through his laugh.

“It was,” Jonny says. “It belonged to some Italian aristocrat.”

“Well, it’s sure as fuck not my name.”

“You could just tell me, you know?” Jonny tries.

He’s in step with Patrick as they walk along the street, arms brushing, skin on skin. It’s not warm yet, but Jonny never wears a coat and his cheeks are tinged red. Patrick carefully doesn’t reach up to touch.

“What would be the fun in that?” Patrick asks. 

Jonny's eyes glitter darkly.

*

“What's taking you so long to get home from school?” Grandpa asks a few weeks later.

Patrick blinks at him, blank, caught out. “Nothing. Taking the scenic route.”

There's a narrowed gaze aimed his way, suspicious. “If you're lacking for things to keep you busy, I can find you some.”

Patrick thinks of Jonny's easy gait, long legs slowed to keep pace, arms brushing, close. Closer. He thinks so long that the wrinkles around his grandpa’s mouth tighten.

He sighs.

“I’ll be quicker tomorrow,” he says.

*

He changes his route, leaving from the back of the school and cutting through a different neighborhood to avoid Jonny's house.

Five minutes of his travel time shaved off. He's rewarded with a sink full of dirty dishes to wash and a backpack full of homework he doesn't want to do when he gets home.

*

It follows him around, this impression of Jonny that was there, a warmth that's fading. He was the flicker of light against a blank wall and now all Patrick has to look at is endless beige swallowing everything else up.

*

He doesn’t talk for three days just to see if anyone notices. 

No one notices.

He’s so painfully bored.

*

On the eleventh day Jonny catches him in front of his grandpa’s house. His hand is on the latched gate that opens to a sprawling front lawn, newly mowed, by Patrick, yesterday.

“You avoiding me?” he asks, stepping forward, big paw around Patrick’s bicep.

“Hey, Stalker.”

The corners of his lips twitch. Jonny’s hand slips to cup his elbow, a grin emerging.

“Are you?” says Jonny. 

“No,” he says. A lie.

Jess emerges from the front door, the screen door pushed open as she calls out, “Mom wants you.”

Patrick ignores her even as Jonny’s eyes flick over in interest. He leans down, mouth close to Patrick’s ear.

“You should meet me in the Mercy Junkyard after you get out tomorrow.”

“Why? So you can chop me up in little pieces and bury me under a car, you fuckin’ creeper?”

“You're funny,” Jonny says, amused.

“I try.”

“Patrick!” Jess yells. “Mom wants you now.”

“I’m coming!” he yells back. He refrains from flipping her the bird.

She disappears inside, the screen door slamming against the frame in her wake. Then it’s quiet again.

Jonny’s looking down at him when he turns, looking at him like he’s fucking Christmas morning or a chocolate cake.

“ _Pat-trick_ ,” he says slowly, like he's tasting the word on his tongue, enjoying the way it bites. A smile rises over his mouth, up to his eyes.

“Yep. That's me,” Patrick shrugs, frozen in place as Jonny edges even closer, his stare piercing.

“Tell your mom you're staying behind tomorrow to get tutoring in the library. I'll wait for you on the east side of the junkyard by the gold GT.”

“I can’t. She won't believe me.”

“Sure she will.” He winks. “Don't be late, Patrick.”

*

He expects someone to mind. 

No one minds.

His grandpa seems unbothered as long as he comes home directly afterward to help with dinner.

“Will you be doing this every day after school or just on Wednesdays?” his mom asks.

“Uh, every day,” he says. “So I don’t, you know, get behind.”

“Good idea,” his grandpa nods.

For once he’s glad to be invisible.

*

The junkyard is five football fields long, full of empty rusting cars and parts, the dry wheat grass a sickly yellow. There are busted out windows and truck guts in disarray, a spooky maze of hollowed out dead things.

It’s weirdly peaceful.

“You’re late.” Jonny says by way of greeting when Patrick finally finds him near the back end of the lot.

“Well, you didn’t exactly give me the best directions,” Patrick snaps. “Also this place? Huge as fuck.”

Jonny laughs. “I know right? That’s why I dig it. When you’re here nobody bothers you. You can do whatever you want.”

Throwing his backpack on the ground, Patrick takes a seat next to Jonny on the hood of the gold GT. “Is it abandoned?”

“No, but the owners usually don’t come out this far unless they’re looking for something specific, so we’re good.”

“Good to do what?” Patrick asks, curious now that he’s here.

Jonny’s lips curl wickedly. “Whatever we want.”

*

They end up listening to the radio, mostly. The GT has a busted in trunk, but is otherwise intact, and it starts easily enough when Jonny hotwires it in a few minutes flat. An interesting bit of information that Patrick tucks away for later.

There’s a bag of pretzels Patrick snatched from the kitchen pantry that morning that they share between them, reclined back against the windshield as they argue about music genres.

“The Rolling Stones haven’t been good in 64 million years, okay. Mick Jagger sounds like a dying cat.”

“I’d say he’ll probably haunt your ass for that remark, but I don’t think he’s ever going to die.”

“He’s practically a walking corpse now anyway so what’s the difference?” Patrick says.

Jonny shrugs. “Yeah, yeah. I’ll give you that one, smartass.”

“Don’t have to tell me, I already knew I was right,” he says, snagging a mini pretzel from the bag to pop into his mouth.

Jonny snatches it from between his fingers as it touches his lips and throws it into his own open mouth, crunching down smugly. Patrick’s thinking up something sharp to comeback with when his attention gets caught on Jonny’s hand, freshly bruised and cut up, dried blood on a few of his knuckles. Another fight.

“You slip and fall on yourself again?” he asks, poking at the scabbed over cut on Jonny’s brow.

Jonny winces. “You keeping count?”

Lying is easy when it’s become a second language, when it throws down obstacles so no one can get near. Patrick stops himself from doing it now; he doesn’t know why. There’s a warm hand circling his wrist and it obliterates anything Patrick was about to do or say. Closer, he thinks. Closer, please. And then no, no, no. He yanks his arm away and folds it against his body as Jonny’s eyes widen, cautious.

It’s too quiet as _Freebird_ fades out on the radio. _We Will Rock You_ by Queen kicking on next.

“I just, um, I don’t…”

“You don’t have good taste in music?” Jonny says. “Yeah, I know.”

“Shut up,” Patrick scoffs, and Jonny grins, pleased.

“When I was a kid, I always thought the line was ‘kickin’ your cat all over the place,’ not your can.”

“You did not think that.”

“Swear to god,” Jonny says, hand raised. “Until I was twelve.”

Patrick brushes Jonny’s brow again, says, “ _You got blood on your face. You big disgrace. Wavin’ your banner all over the place_.”

“ _We will, we will rock you_ ,” Jonny mouths along, hands like drums on his thighs. He holds out his fist like an invisible microphone for Patrick to sing into.

It’s unbearably cheesy, Patrick can’t refuse.

“ _We will, we will rock you_ ,” he sings, voice rising to meet Jonny’s and Freddie Mercury’s. Loud enough they can probably be heard a block away.

“ _We will, we will rock you!_ ” they shout in unison.

*

They don’t talk about it, not really. Instead it becomes a kind of silent agreement to meet at the junkyard every day. Sometimes they walk around and talk, other times they sit by the gold GT and listen to the radio, Patrick working on his homework while Jonny props up the hood and screws around with the engine.

When they get bored or pissed off, they’ll make games out of throwing rocks at half-broken windows, creating point systems for how loud the glass sounds as it shatters. They pop tires and set fire to small pieces of scrap metal, taking bets on how long it’ll burn. Jonny usually wins because he cheats, but Patrick doesn’t call him out on it.

On the weekends, when Patrick can get away, they drop by the corner gas station and buy a packet of gum, the other snacks pocketed, hidden from the cashier’s eyes. They stretch out on dry dirt ground and the raggedy torn blanket Jonny found, feasting on their pilfered goods under the afternoon sun.

“Why don’t you ever have homework?” Patrick asks one mild Sunday in early November.

“I took the GED last spring,” he says. “I’m taking this bullshit online intro to business course now to get my mom off my back. It’s nothing. You want the white donuts or the chocolate?”

“Chocolate. Is that even a real question?”

Jonny grins. “What about this? You like this?” 

He pulls a joint from his jacket. It’s inside a ziplock baggie with three others and a pink Bic lighter.

“I like that a lot,” Patrick says, taking the baggie and cracking it open.

He wiggles the pink lighter in Jonny’s face until he snorts, rolling his eyes, shaking his head.

Patrick lights it up and takes a long hit, letting it burn in his lungs just to feel the heat. He doesn’t realize his eyes have closed until they flutter open as he exhales, slow, easy.

Jonny’s staring at his mouth.

He licks his lips, just a tease. Jonny stares. He stares often, without care and with a kind of confidence that makes Patrick’s toes tingle.

Neither of them move for a long beat.

“Here,” Patrick says in the quiet, offering Jonny the joint.

Reaching up, Jonny gingerly takes his hand and twists it just enough so that he can take a pull while it’s still pinched between Patrick’s fingers. Jonny’s lips are soft as they press against Patrick’s skin, his breath warm. He almost drops the whole thing when Jonny’s hand cups around his palm, more like a tickle than a touch.

“Thanks,” he says, when he sits back.

“Uh, yeah,” Patrick swallows.

They share the rest of the joint in silence, within inches, as the wind blows a chilly breeze. Patrick thinks of pushing their shoulders together to feel him, near, but doesn’t, lets the space settle as he floats, watching the clouds in the sky. 

*

In December it snows twelve inches, covering the roads in thickly-packed ice and canceling school for a week straight. When Patrick’s grandpa runs out of shit for him to do, he tells him to take his sisters sledding on the hill by Jackie’s elementary school.

He takes them to Jonny’s house instead. There’s two nets set up on the street, several sticks and other assorted gear in a pile by the edge of the yard. His parents are bundled up in coats and scarves, sitting on the porch, steaming coffee mugs in their hands.

“Would you kids like some hot chocolate?” Bryan asks.

Jackie and Jessica scurry inside while Erica hangs back with him, surveying.

The normalcy of it all feels off, makes his skin itch.

“Who’s this?” David says.

“Patrick and...Erica, right?” Jonny asks.

“Right,” Erica nods. “And you are?”

“Aww, c’mon. You haven’t told your sisters about me yet? Really?” Jonny grins, mouth tight at the edges.

Erica snorts. “Patrick doesn’t tell anyone anything anymore.”

“Shut up,” Patrick says.

“See,” she shrugs.

Jonny leans down into her space, wrapping a loose arm around her shoulders. “Well, just so you know from now on, I’m his new best friend.”

“Well,” she replies cheerfully, “maybe you can keep him out of trouble.”

“Don’t count on it,” he winks at her.

She laughs, unexpected and amused, the apples of her cheeks blushing a pale pink. Patrick’s jaw tightens; he walks around them to look through the pile of equipment.

On the porch, Andree is watching them, she smiles at Patrick when their eyes meet and he forces something crooked and gentle across his mouth. It’s awkward. Behind him, Erica and Jonny are still talking, David stickhandling a few feet away as Patrick stands alone.

He thinks about his dad suddenly, tucked away in his room, at his grandpa’s house, where he spends most days now, silent and void and absent of who he used to be. There would’ve been a time, a time before, when he would’ve been on that porch watching Patrick play. A different porch, a different house, a different time. Patrick doesn’t want to think of his dad, doesn’t think of his dad, usually. Not because he doesn’t want to, not really, but because he can’t. It’s too much even thinking about him in this moment, on the wrong side of his own life, the outside of Jonny’s attention.

He gulps in a quick breath of air, sucking in the prickly cold and coughs when it scrapes against his throat.

“Are we gonna play or what?” David says.

Jonny shoulders in close to Patrick, leaning in from behind him. “You want to be on my team?”

Patrick turns, leaving space between them. “No.”

“No?”

Jonny’s wearing a black helmet, a team emblem etched on the side, the chin strap hanging loose, his neck long and bare. He’s bigger with pads on, thicker. Patrick flicks his eyes up and down, then up and down again until Jonny catches him, pleased. Patrick looks away.

“Why not?”

“Why didn’t you tell me you play?” he volleys back.

“Played,” Jonny says. His face shutters closed. “So we’ll go to whoever scores ten first then. Davie, you’re with me.”

He’s moving before Patrick can stop him, handing Erica a helmet and a stick, setting up the puck at the place they’ve marked on the street as center ice. Ready for the first face-off.

Patrick follows, standing across from him. They tap their sticks three times. 

One. Two. Go.

*

The game devolves quickly. Jonny’s impatient, competitive, sloppy. He tries to score every goal and defend every puck aimed at his own net. When David doesn’t pass well, he bites off fucks and damnits and smacks his stick against the ice loud enough to make Patrick flinch.

“Stop fumbling the fucking puck,” he grits out in David’s direction after the score goes up nine to seven in favor of Patrick.

“I’m not!”

“You are. Keep it tape to tape; it’s not that hard.”

“Boys,” Andree says, a warning.

They reset at the face-off dot again. Jonny wins the draw against Erica. He passes to David, sliding down to Patrick’s net where he huddles in close beside Patrick, hovering, but not pushing. All David has to do is get the puck across the makeshift rink to Jonny before Erica reaches him and tries to pry it away, no problem.

But.

He takes too long, rushes the shot and when he tries to connect it, the puck veers off to the left, landing in the yard, out of play.

Jonny loses it.

“Are you fucking serious!?! You can’t do that one thing? Did you even fucking try?” 

“Jonathan!” Andree shouts.

“Fuck you!” David says. “It’s not my fault you can’t play anymore.”

Jonny’s eyes flare.

Patrick blinks and they’re on the ground, Jonny having wrestled David to his back onto the icy street. They’re throwing punches now, kicking, spitting words.

It’s like watching a head-on collision. He takes it all in in a daze, only snapping out of it when Andree screams for Bryan. By the time it’s broken up, Jonny’s lip is busted open, blood dribbling down, and David’s left cheek is a hot pink and swelled up.

Erica’s looking at him, bewildered. What a clusterfuck.

Patrick follows everyone inside the house, bypassing Jess and Jackie where they’re sitting in the living room, cartoons on the television. He finds Jonny tucked into a small half bathroom, overshirt pulled off, pads still on, hair sweaty and askew. He’s dabbing toilet paper over his bleeding mouth, the faucet running. Patrick wedges himself in the doorway. 

There are white and navy blue sailboats on the wallpaper, the soap dispenser a pale seashell probably filled with some lemon basil shit that only people with money buy.

Patrick sighs. “Maybe we should go.”

“Don’t,” Jonny says. “Stay for dinner.”

He dabs at his lip again, hissing when he presses too hard on the cut. 

Patrick catches his wrist, tugging Jonny’s hand away and reaching for the toilet paper. He gathers enough to fold into a padded square and wets it under the faucet. Then he places it gently over Jonny’s wound, holding it there for a moment.

“Are you okay?”

Jonny shrugs. “Will you stay?”

“Your lip’s all fucked up.”

“Patrick,” he huffs.

“Okay,” Patrick says.

*

There’s pizza and a movie and more hot chocolate. Andree asks them what they're doing for Christmas, if they like to ice skate, if they decorate their tree with white string lights or the colored kind. Jackie lists off all the Barbie toys she wants and will never get, Jessica talks about her favorite holiday dishes her and their mom will never have time to bake. Erica’s smile is strained.

Patrick says nothing. He thinks of Christmas Eve three years ago. He thinks about the stale Chinese food they ate and the small pile of presents wrapped in newspaper sitting beside the construction paper Christmas tree. There was _Frosty the Snowman_ on TV and Jackie was crying because they didn’t have any cookies to set out for Santa. When no one was looking, Neal had kicked Patrick in the stomach and told him to “shut her the hell up.”

Patrick pushes his plate of pizza away, done eating. He grips at his own fingers for something to hold onto. Inching forward in his seat, he listens to them all chat for a few more minutes, until eventually he’s forced to stand.

“We should probably get back,” he announces.

Jackie pouts, wanting to stay, as Jessica asks if they can come back again, before Patrick can stop her. Andree says anytime and fusses over them for several minutes, Bryan offering them the leftover pizza. They’re nice. Too nice.

Patrick needs to leave.

“We can drive you,” Bryan says.

Patrick shakes his head. “It’s not that far. We’re fine. Thank you.”

Jonny grabs his coat and follows after them as they make their way to the front door.

“I'll walk with them,” he says. “Make sure they get home safe.”

Andree gives him a look. “Come right back.”

“Sure,” he says.

*

“Can I come in?” Jonny asks when they make it to Patrick’s house.

The girls file in first, Patrick stopping in the doorway, Jonny on the other side.

“Probably not a good idea.”

Jonny’s brow furrows. “Why not?”

In the background, Patrick can hear Jessica talking to Mom, a football game on the television further in the background. He imagines his grandpa’s narrowed eyes and disapproving scowl, his myriad of impossible questions.

“Because,” he sighs, “my grandpa’s home and he. He’d just give us shit. It’s not worth it.”

“He doesn’t even know me.”

“That doesn’t matter. You’re with me, that’s enough.”

Jonny smiles suddenly, his dried bloody cut stretching across his mouth to the point it almost looks painful. “I am with you. And fuck him.”

Patrick chokes on a cough, ducks his head. He’s not used to this, to the way Jonny will rip through words to find just the right thing to say. He doesn’t know how Jonny does it.

“Come back over tomorrow,” Jonny says. Two fingers cup around Patrick’s chin, tilting his head up as a thumb brushes below his bottom lip, a quick touch.

Patrick bites at the inside of his cheek. “Maybe. If you can keep your fists to yourself for once.”

“Hey, I tried!” Jonny says, defensive.

“You didn’t even try a little,” Patrick says, helplessly grinning.

Jonny’s entire face brightens at Patrick’s amusement. “Well, I’ll try for you.”

There’s this charge of energy, like static electricity zinging through the air. They’re in each other’s space, always in each other’s space, it feels like, but this is different, something thicker, something fiercer. If Patrick could just pull Jonny in, he could make it true, real -- connect the currents and watch it crackle to life.

He ducks his head again and Jonny edges back then, shuffling down the steps and through the yard. Gone too quickly.

_Come back_ , Patrick thinks and watches him until he disappears.

*

Winter is wet and cold. The days feel short, the night’s too long. Patrick spends more time at Jonny’s house since it’s too chilly to go to the junkyard. They stay up in Jonny’s room mostly, or down in the basement away from his parents and David. They play video games until they get bored, sneaking booze from Jonny’s father’s liquor cabinet and snatching twenties from his mom’s wallet.

They buy Newport Menthols with Jonny’s fake ID, saving the joints for after Patrick’s appointments with his parole officer.

“Random drug tests,” Patrick explains.

“Parole, eh?” Jonny asks. “What for?”

“Drugs,” Patrick says. “And battery.”

Jonny’s eyebrows rise, but he doesn’t ask further questions and Patrick’s thankful.

When he can get away with staying out late, the two of them will wait up until everyone’s gone to bed and take Jonny’s mom’s car out for joyrides, spinning the wheels recklessly over the icy black pavement, driving through yards, and wasting all of her gas. Patrick will stick half his body out of the passenger side window, cigarette hanging from his mouth and wind whipping through his hair, the air so cold his eyes sting and glitter. Jonny’ll turn the radio up to blasting, his knees steering the wheels as he stares at Patrick and not the road.

They almost crash, more than once, but they don’t die, and Patrick screams into the night. He’s free.

*

In early March, Jonny goes missing for two days.

He’s not at Patrick’s school when he gets out for the afternoon or around the gas station where they meet up to pocket munchies, not the junkyard, or wandering around the neighborhood, or even at Jason’s, Jonny’s dealer’s place.

Patrick searches everywhere they usually go, now that the snow has melted and they aren’t stuck indoors anymore. Jonny’s nowhere. And Patrick’s a thread on a loop, being pulled and knotted tighter, and tighter. 

On the third day, the day he’s supposed to meet with Rick, his P.O., he’s too strung out and unwilling to wait. He walks straight from school to Jonny’s house, banging on the door because he knows his parents aren’t home. He’s surprised then when Andree answers, her expression startled.

“Hello, Patrick.”

“I, um, I didn’t know you were home. I mean, yeah, hi. Is Jonny around?”

Her lips thin. “He’s upstairs, resting, I’m afraid. He has a migraine. He gets them every now and then, he might have told you. Sometimes they will last a few hours, sometimes a few days. This last one was quite bad, he threw up a few times. It’s just easier for him to stay in bed.”

“Oh,” Patrick nods. He doesn’t know what to say.

Andree looks at him. She looks at him long enough Patrick thinks maybe he should leave.

“Would you like to come up and see him for a minute?”

“Yes,” Patrick says, without hesitation.

Her expression warms.

She leads him into the house and up the stairs to Jonny’s room, the door cracked open just a smidge. Inside the curtains are drawn and Jonny’s spread out on his bed, no shirt on with the sheets pooled around his knees where the ends of his jersey shorts hit. His face is flushed and blotchy, his hair matted to his forehead and his face lax with sleep. Patrick’s almost about to tell her not to bother him when Jonny’s eyes blink open.

“Jonathan,” Andree whispers, “Patrick wanted to come see you for a moment. To say hello.”

Jonny smacks his dry mouth open once, twice, rubs a hand over his pinched face.

“Hey you,” he croaks out, voice rough like sandpaper.

“Hey,” Patrick says, throwing out a small wave. He shoves his hands in his pockets after.

“I’ll leave you boys alone, let me know if you need anything,” Andree says before she departs.

Jonny pats at the empty space next to him on his full sized mattress. “C’mere,” he says.

“You could’ve told me about this,” Patrick whispers harshly. “You just fucking…”

“I know,” Jonny mumbles. “I’m a shithead. Come sit with me.”

“I should come punch you,” Patrick says, but goes anyway.

He sits down slowly, gingerly making himself comfortable next to Jonny so he doesn’t rock the mattress too much. It seems to be the thing to do, even if he’s only vaguely sure about why.

It’s silent for several beats, and Patrick pauses to take in Jonny’s room, from the clothes and trash strewn around the floor to the song lyrics drawn in sharpie on the walls, the taped up ticket stubs and torn hockey posters, to the collection of medals and trophies half stuffed in the back of his closet. He’s seen it many times now, but it’s a shipwreck swept mess made new with each visit.

“I’m okay,” Jonny says finally, almost too quiet to hear.

“Are you?” Patrick asks.

“Not really,” he says, even quieter.

Patrick sucks in a long breath, exhales. The clock on the wall with the cracked screen reads 3:49pm. He’s supposed to meet Rick at four. Jonny’s mom said only a minute. He’s past his welcome. He’s late. He didn’t know, but he should have, and he’s two days late.

He scoots down the bed until he’s lying flat on his back, his side pressed to Jonny’s back.

“Next time this happens, tell me,” he says.

“Next time,” Jonny echoes.

They don’t talk after that, they hardly move. Patrick waits until Jonny relaxes beside him, breath heavy and even, ribcage rising and falling rhythmically.

Jonny’s skin is smooth, unblemished, hot to the touch. There are tiny freckles and moles like stars in space that dot across his back and shoulders, up to his neck, one just below his ear. Patrick traces it with the tip of his finger, makes tiny figure-eights again and again.

Once he’s sure Jonny’s asleep, he presses a feather soft kiss to that mole before he leaves.

*

Rick has one of those faces - the kind that's hard to read, the kind that can transform if he's smiling or frowning. Right now he's a blank canvas as he looks over Patrick's file.

“I see you missed your appointment last week.”

“I was sick,” Patrick says automatically.

Rick eyes him suspiciously.

“I was…” he starts, another lie beginning to form. He exhales. “Actually I wasn't. But my friend was and I didn't want to leave him alone. I should've called ahead, but I forgot. My fault.”

Rick stares at him stony-faced for almost a full minute.

“That was kind of you to help a friend.”

Patrick shrugs. “I guess.”

There’s more reading, more paper shuffling, more discussion of mundane things like Patrick’s schooling and his clean drug trust. A true miracle. He waits for Rick to drop the bomb on him about this past missed appointment, ready to hear what consequence is ahead of him.

Rick says, “Look, Patrick. I'm not here punish you for honest mistakes, I'm here to help. I want to get you back on track. You've done well these past 6 months. This missed appointment is a blip. Stay out of trouble like I know you can and I think we can get your discharge paperwork started.”

Patrick blinks at him. “Wait. Does that mean we’re done?”

Rick smiles, just a small quirk of the mouth, but it erases every hardness, turns it all warm.

“We’re done. Be good, kid.”

_Be good_ , Patrick thinks. _Be good._


	3. Chapter 3

On Friday, there’s a half-day of school, and Patrick walks his usual path under a gray sky filled with looming storm clouds. He could’ve rode in with Erica and her new boyfriend, Bobby, but he can’t bring himself to bum rides when he hasn't been allowed to get his own license.

He thinks of the afternoon instead. Erica’s fucking off with her friends, unbeknownst to their mom or grandpa, which leaves Patrick free to get baked in Jonny’s basement, maybe drink some more of that spiced rum he has hidden under the stairwell. They can order a pizza and play Fallout, maybe take a nap on the buttery leather sofa that Patrick loves, the one that’s softer than his own bed.

A car horn honks in the distance and Patrick reflexively turns. It’s Jonny in his mom’s car, windows down, and his left arm resting on the driver’s side door as he pulls up close to the sidewalk where Patrick’s standing.

“Well hello,” Patrick says, surprised.

Jonny’s eyes are a little sleep-puffy, his hair messy and soft looking like he just woke up. He smiles lazily, says, “Get in, I’ll give you a ride.”

Patrick hops in, dropping his backpack at his feet. “You’re up early.”

“I have plans for today.”

“And those are?”

“A surprise.”

“For who?” Patrick asks.

“For you,” Jonny says.

Patrick frowns, deeply.

“What’s that face for?”

“I hate surprises. Just tell me what it is.”

“No can do,” Jonny shrugs. “You’ll just have to wait.”

Patrick considers this offer for a minute and then nods, mind made up.

“I’ll pass. I’m good.”

Jonny rolls his eyes. “You can’t refuse a surprise. You don’t even know what it is yet.”

“Yeah, because you won’t tell me!”

“Just be patient,” he says.

“You be patient,” Patrick snaps back.

There’s this lopsided grin Jonny has that Patrick hates - hates it for the way it stings inside his ribcage - the way Jonny uses it just for Patrick.

He flashes it now as he says, “Someone’s cranky this morning.”

“It’s too early for this shit,” Patrick grumbles. “I’m tired. And you just passed my school.”

“Yeah, well, you’re not going today.”

“Oh, I’m not?”

“No,” Jonny says, flipping on the radio. “We have plans. Big ones.”

“That you won’t tell me.”

“Nope.”

Patrick glares. “I almost stabbed a guy for surprising me once.”

Jonny laughs. He laughs so hard he almost swerves the car into oncoming traffic.

“Stop laughing, you fuck,” Patrick growls.

Jonny only laughs harder.

*

It takes two hours to drive from Kingston to Brooklyn. Usually. Jonny makes it in an hour and a half. By the time they make it to Coney Island, the sky has cleared to a hazy blue, the sun peeking through the mix of white-gray clouds.

Patrick takes in the cityscape at first, attention caught on buildings and busy streets, a mountain of chaos. It’s alluring, this undiscovered country before him, all of the things he could explore. Back in Buffalo, when he was living with Mark, there was an echo of that same feeling, of being able to come and go as he pleased, of having no one and nothing to answer to. There’s a piece of him that misses it. Much like the piece of him that feels caged every time he has to walk back into his grandpa’s house. He doesn’t want to think about that now - not of Buffalo or Kingston, and especially not his past. He wants to be here, now, and nowhere else.

When Jonny tugs him forward, once they’re out of the car, Patrick moves with him happily, his attention drawn to the view in front of them, where the backdrop of the park butts against the beach and the boardwalk, like a picture perfect photograph. All of the colors are overwhelming, everything is so bright. 

“You ever been before?” Jonny asks, paying their entrance admission.

Patrick shakes his head.

“Well, that means we have to ride every ride then.”

They take to the Cyclone first, then the Thunderbolt and the Soarin’ Eagle, three of the biggest park rollercoasters. After, they eat funnel cake, powdered sugar still on their fingers as they play whac-a-mole over and over, until Jonny gets pissy about losing to a few eight year olds. He drags them to the raceway next where he triumphantly blasts his lime green go-cart to the finish line before having them backtrack to the arcade. There they spend a few hours playing games and sharing overcooked hot dogs, Patrick winning himself a stuffed pink puppy at Bazooka Blast on only his second try.

“It’s fucking rigged,” Jonny grumbles.

“Yeah, and I still won. I’m that good,” Patrick says, overly smug. He enjoys the way it gets Jonny all worked up, these little competitions, his cheeks and neck flushing rosy red. Patrick doesn't stare.

“You'd like to think so.”

“I would. And I do,” Patrick smiles, tongue poking out between his teeth.

Jonny makes him ride the teacups for that one, and then the Electro Spin, a one-two punch that curdles Patrick’s stomach and has his head dizzy sick.

“I’m gonna hurl,” he says once they’re out of the air.

“Weak, dude. That ride was a 4 out of 10, at most,” Jonny says, but he fits his hand to the small of Patrick’s back anyway.

“I fuckin’ hate you.”

“No, you don’t.”

“I need to sit,” he whines, as he makes his way to a picnic table. He sits down slow, slumping forward miserably onto the plastic tabletop. 

Jonny takes a seat beside him, says, “What can I do?”

He’s rubbing up and down Patrick’s spine now, gentle, and it’s nice. The ding ding ding of won games sounds off in the distance.

“Get me a water. And a cherry slushie. Make it snappy.”

He expects Jonny to argue, or give him a hard time for fading out so quickly, but he doesn’t and Patrick can only imagine how green he must look to earn the brush of fingers through his hair.

“As you wish,” he says, standing. 

Patricks stays limply folded over the table, taking several deep breaths, eyes closed as he feels his center of gravity begin to right itself, the nausea ebbing away with each minute he isn't moving. When he lifts his head to check on Jonny, he finds him standing in line at a food truck, fifty feet away, chatting with a guy, a much older guy. The kind of guy that wears boat shoes and clips his iPhone to his belt, the kind, apparently, that likes to flirt with hot teenage boys. Patrick can't hear what they're saying, but he can see Jonny feeding into it, touching this man’s hip and laughing too loudly. The swooping in Patrick's stomach sinks its teeth back in with a vengeance so he shuts his eyes again, inhales through his nose.

More times passes before Jonny returns, two waters under each arm, a cherry slushie and a cone of pink cotton candy in his hands. Patrick watches him straddle the bench and set down his loot.

“Make a friend?” Patrick asks.

“Who?”

Jonny cracks the seal on one of the waters and slides it over to Patrick, making a gesture for him to drink. Patrick does, swallowing down a few large gulps then reaching for his slushie.

“Capri Pants back there.”

“Oh that guy,” Jonny laughs, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a leather wallet. “Yeah, he paid for our snacks. Nice of him, right?” He flips it open, extracting the rest of the cash before chucking the thing into a trash can over his shoulder, satisfied with his prize.

Patrick snickers, can’t help himself. “So generous.”

Finishing the water helps settle him down; Jonny’s body close, hovering near him, helps also. He drinks the slushie until his tongue goes halfway numb from the cold, his lips shades of ruby. Jonny keeps staring at them, and that settles Patrick in a different way, too.

“Did you know,” Jonny says, tearing off some cotton candy, “the pink tastes better than the blue, it’s been scientifically proven.”

“By who?”

Jonny shoves a huge chunk in his mouth. “My taste buds.”

Patrick snorts. “You’re stupid,” he says, but he doesn’t disagree.

*

They make their way to the beach a little later on, finding a spot near the shore that isn’t crowded by people or noise.

Patrick slips his shoes and socks off, digging his toes into the cool, soothing sand as Jonny lights a cigarette beside him. They share it between each other for a few puffs, the nicotine and cotton candy a strange mix in his mouth.

“What was your best day?” Jonny asks, low.

Patrick hums, drawing his legs up so he can rest his forearms on his knees. He watches the tide move in and out, white sea foam spreading over wet land.

“Today,” he says.

Jonny looks at him, eyes knowing, but smile sweet and pleased all the same.

“Yeah,” he nods.

*

Returning to Kingston doesn’t darken his mood, his thoughts still floating somewhere in Brooklyn. When they pull up down his road, Patrick has Jonny circle around the block so he can sneak in through the backyard in case anyone’s home.

“For you.” Patrick says once they’ve parked, tossing Jonny the pink puppy he won. “I hate pink anyway,” he jokes, and Jonny mock gasps.

“Harsh,” he says, cuddling the puppy to his cheek.

They both laugh, but it feels strained suddenly with the way the moment is drawing out, turning heavy. He doesn’t want to say goodbye. He doesn’t want to go. He has to anyway.

“So, uh, later,” Patrick murmurs, stilted, abrupt, and jiggles the car handle to open the door. He half waves at the car, not looking as he cuts through the middle of two houses to get to his grandpa’s yard. Popping the latch, he lets himself in and closes the gate when he hears his name.

It’s Jonny, with his backpack.

“Forgot this,” he says, handing it over the six foot fence.

“Thanks,” says Patrick, reaching out.

Their fingers touch between the slats of the fence, purposeful and new. Above him, the sun is sinking low and dripping gold, the breeze swift against his face. He thinks maybe he could drift away with the wind he feels so light.

*

There’s 2% milk in the refrigerator. Patrick loves 2% and his grandpa almost never buys it so this must be his lucky morning. The pitter patter of bare feet get closer as his mom comes into the kitchen. She puts on a pot of coffee, shuffling behind him for a minute. The fridge opens and shuts once, then twice.

“He’s coming to visit,” Mom says then, her voice cracking.

Patrick’s pouring Frosted Miniwheats into a bowl, standing by the sink, and only half awake. He has to leave for school in ten minutes.

“Who?” he asks.

“Uncle Neal,” she says. “He’s coming to visit next weekend, for Easter.”

The first thing Patrick thinks is: of course. Just those two words and nothing more. Just that. Because yes, of course this would happen now when Patrick’s finally, _finally_ , starting to get his shit together, when things don’t feel so tenuous and brittle.

The bottom of his stomach feels like it’s going to fall out.

He shoves his cereal bowl in the sink, 2% milk spilling over the edge.

“School,” he says. “Gotta go.”

He gets two blocks away and pukes beside a garbage can.

*

For a few days he doesn't sleep or eat much, his insides feel thorn-filled. Everything is shades of gray, washed out and disconnected.

It's hard to talk. It's hard to think.

He's vacant. He has to be or he’ll break.

When he catches Erica looking, he fakes a smile, stretched thin and fragile. She doesn’t seem convinced. Jonny’s worried. Patrick can tell he wants to ask, that it’s killing him not to. Patrick can’t lie to him, but he doesn’t know how to tell him the truth.

*

Neal arrives early on Saturday morning, his truck loud in the driveway, his voice even louder when he steps inside the house.

Patrick lies frozen on his bed, still in his pajamas, hands fisted in his comforter.

He wants to leave, wants to jump out of his window or maybe off the roof of the house. He knows he needs to be better, needs to stay. Not for himself, but for Erica, Jess and Jackie. Still, the thought of fading away, of no longer being, is preferable to the idea of walking out of his room and being near the one person who sees him for what he really is: worthless.

“Get up,” his grandpa shouts from the other side of his door. “Come help with breakfast.”

Patrick stares at his door forlornly, squeezing his eyes shut tight. Wishing and wishing and wishing, and nothing changing. He sighs, rolling out of bed and slipping on whatever shirt and pants he can reach the fastest, leaves his room.

Edging into the kitchen, he walks to the cupboard and starts pulling down plates and cups. Erica’s at the stove frying eggs, his mom chopping tomatoes as his grandpa sits at the dining table with Neal. Patrick doesn’t look at him, but he can hear them talking, catching up about Neal’s job and this new woman he’s seeing, Theresa. Jess and Jackie are in the other room watching cartoons with Dad, Jackie passionately explaining the difference between Princess Bubblegum and Prince Gumball. 

Patrick focuses his attention on Jackie’s little voice, so cheerful and excited, as Patrick sets the table. Mom eventually joins in on the conversation, Erica staying quiet as she cooks one omelette, then two more eggs sunny side up.

When the food is made he and Erica get stuck at the table listening to Neal complain about how money’s been tight since they left, how he gave up so much for them to live with him, and received so little in return. His probation has been tough, cutting into his work schedule, costing him court fees, making his life hell. He’s strapped for cash, he deserves recompense for how much he’s helped his sister and her kids, and her vegetable of a husband. At that last comment Patrick can see his mom jerk minutely in her seat, the fork clanging inelegantly against her plate. He waits for her to speak up, to say something, but she doesn’t and the moment passes.

Erica only eats half her eggs and toast; Patrick eats even less.

*

After the dishes are done, Grandpa and Neal head out to his workshop for a few hours, to do what, Patrick doesn’t know or care. His mom assigns everyone their usual weekend chores which, for Patrick, include helping Dad with lunch and settling him down for a nap before picking weeds around the house. From the outside, he can see Jess cleaning windows in the dining room and they make goofy faces at each other while Patrick trims the hedges in the backyard.

She’s too young to know Neal, maybe, too young to remember what happened. Sometimes he thinks he feels resentment that her and Jackie never went through what he and Erica did, but mostly he’s just so profoundly fucking grateful they didn’t. He can see that Erica feels it also in the way she watches them at times, fond and...careful.

He sits down by her on the couch when he comes inside, hands freshly washed and knees a little achy from squatting in the dirt. Erica’s quiet, curled in on herself, reading. The pieces of her that are always so bubbly and brilliant are dull now, subdued since Neal’s arrival. She’s trying to hide in her book because she can’t hide in her room, or under her bed, or in the arms of Bobby. Patrick can relate.

Jonny, he thinks, for fifth time or the fiftieth. It’s miserable without him here, that he can’t be, that Patrick wouldn’t let him be even if he had a choice. The hideousness of this shouldn’t touch him, ever. Patrick won’t let it. Even if it means he has to endure it alone.

He has before and he will again. If he must.

If he can.

*

They end up at the grocery store by early evening, he and Erica, dragged there by Neal at their grandpa’s behest. Mom gave them a list of things to get: chicken, carrots, potatoes, rosemary and thyme. 

“How’s school?” Neal asks.

“Make any new friends?”

“Keeping out of trouble?” he asks.

“It’s fine,” Erica says, even though Neal’s looking at Patrick.

If he speaks, he’ll scream so he stays silent, trailing behind Neal, with Erica, like two zombies on a leash.

When Bobby shows up unexpectedly, it’s a little like Erica remembers she’s allowed to breathe again. He pulls her close, smacking a kiss against her lips and tucking her into his side. She looks small there compared to Bobby, who’s one of the bigger seniors in the school, who even stands taller than Neal, effortlessly imposing.

“Hey Pat,” he nods.

“Hey Bobert,” Patrick nods back.

Bobby laughs at their inside joke as Neal squints at them.

“Introduce me.”

Everyone turns at Neal’s demand.

Erica looks as tense as a cracked windshield seconds away from snapping. “I um…”

“Sorry,” Bobby cuts in, eyes narrowed in Neal’s direction. “My fault. I just barged over here. I’m Robert Keough, Erica’s boyfriend. I go to school with her and Patrick.”

“Neal Stutz, the uncle,” he says, shaking Bobby’s hand like he’s got something to prove. He smacks Bobby harshly on the shoulder. “Well, you’re a big fucker. You play hockey?”

“Football,” Bobby says. “Since I was little.”

Neal smiles. “I always say sports are good for a kid. Builds character. What position do you play?”

“Defensive back,” Bobby answers, cordially.

Patrick’s not sure who’s more grateful for Bobby’s distracting entrance: him or Erica. It’s a tiny relief. Bobby doesn’t seem to mind making idle, inane chatter with Neal, or the way Erica clings to his arm more than she ever normally would. Patrick notices his eyes flicking between the two of them, searching, questioning. That’s a conversation for later, for sure. One he’s happy not to be a part of.

They all continue walking through the store, adding items to the cart as they go. Patrick keeps his distance, hands shoved in his pockets, watching and wary.

*

Erica takes off with Bobby after they pay for the groceries, so it’s just Patrick and Neal on the drive back. They don’t talk, Neal too busy fucking with his new Skoal container, fumbling it open one-handed and shoving the vile smelling tobacco flecks into the corner of his mouth. There’s an empty Dr. Pepper bottle in the front cup holder he uses to spit in periodically, the brown liquid sloshing around the bottom as the truck turns corners. Patrick cracks the window to suck in some fresh air, lungs tight, and palms sweaty. His stomach aches.

When they pull into his grandpa’s driveway Patrick hops out first, moving to the cargo bed to unload the groceries. He makes one trip in, dropping the bags on the kitchen counter before returning to make another trip. He’s reaching for a pack of bottled water when a hand lands like a hammer on his shoulder.

Neal.

He grabs at Patrick as he stands there, in a rush, almost like he just remembered Patrick is here at all.

He leans in close, voice overloud in Patrick’s ear. “What’s up, twerp? Long time no see.”

If Patrick responds he’ll make it worse. If he doesn’t respond he’ll make it worse.

“I don’t get a hello?” Neal asks, irritated.

Patrick doesn’t move. The hand on his shoulder tightens, fingers digging in deep.

He folds inward. The hand tightens again.

He wants to jerk away, but he can’t move. It burns. It burns so bad.

“That’s not very nice, you know,” Neal chides. “It’s rude to ignore people.”

“Stop,” Patrick chokes out, mouth open in a silent cry.

“What?” 

There’s a hand around his other arm now too, squeezing, and Patrick’s boxed in against the truck, metal cutting into his hip.

“I said-”

“You said?” Neal breaks in, pressing this time, until Patrick’s knees start to buckle. He drops the water back into the cargo bed and gasps.

Neal laughs, a grating chorus of heh heh heh, amused at his own sick game.

“That’s what I thought,” he says, when Patrick doesn’t reply. “Now take that inside.”

He lets go, jerking Patrick forward so that he has to brace against the tailgate instead of falling face first into metal. When he rights himself, he turns, just slightly, and catches his mom looking out through the kitchen window.

She’s looking right at him.

She’s only a few yards away. And she’s looking at him and she saw them and she didn’t say anything. She didn’t stop _him_. She was silent.

Patrick can’t. He can’t stay silent anymore. He lifts the pack of water from the truck and throws it at Neal, shoves it right into his beer belly gut, pushing at him hard enough he trips and crumples to the pavement.

“ _I said_ get the fuck off of me!” he spits.

Neal stares up at him with shock and fury, eyes wide like a run over deer in a ditch.

Patrick glares at the pitiful, insufferable image of him curled on the ground for one long moment. Only one. Then he takes off down the driveway, to the sidewalk, past several houses and on. He doesn’t look back, just runs and runs and runs until he’s out of breath and Neal is, blessedly, out of sight.

*

More than anything else there's rage. Rage that he can't stop this, that it even happened in the first place, that he tried and it was never, ever good enough.

Never good enough.

The thought echoes in his head. It's an ugly, eviscerating spiral, and it winds its way around his thoughts until everything else is obliterated, until all he wants to do is roar and rip into everything he can touch.

He finds a classic Ford Thunderbird in the middle of the quiet junkyard, where he’s ended up. From afar it almost looks pristine, the body mostly untouched, paint still glossy and unmarred except for the flat tires and a missing passenger door. The inside, however, is a rotted out corpse, black, barren, burnt. Patrick finds a loose pipe. He tears it apart. 

The repetition feels good, he likes the smash, crunch, clang of it and the way the metal caves in, the glass shatters, the pieces break. His arms get heavy from swinging after a while, his lungs working double time to keep up, but he doesn't stop. He can't. He hits it again and again and again. He hits it until his vision starts to blur and his hands start to shake. Maybe he can hit it until it's a distorted pile of nothing, just like him.

A gentle hand on his back startles him enough he jumps and spins sharply around.

“Hey, whoa,” Jonny says, soft. “Everything okay?”

Patrick steps back, head ducking down as he sucks in air, chest heaving. “Sure.”

Jonny frowns. “What's wrong?”

“Nothing. Just my stupid fucking family.”

“Did something happen?”

He sounds so concerned, eyes searching. Patrick swallows the rocks in his throat.

“I don't want to talk about it.”

They stand there for a while, staring at the busted up Thunderbird, the sky a dreamsicle orange as the sun continues to set. It's one of those silences that Patrick knows means Jonny has a million questions he wants to ask. One day he will. But please not today, Patrick thinks. Please not right now. _Please_.

“Okay,” Jonny sighs. “Well then. Wanna get drunk and light some shit on fire?”

Patrick huffs out a watery laugh. “I thought you’d never ask.”

*

There’s a wooded area not far from the junkyard; they go to it and build a small bonfire, a circle of stones around the outside to keep it in check. Jonny ignites it with a hand sized tin of lighter fluid that Patrick has no idea where it came from. He pulls a bigger bottle of Hennessy from his coat pocket, a bag of Sour Patch Kids, and a half empty pack of cigarettes. They share the lot of it while Patrick stubbornly throws scraps of steel and leather and anything he can reach into the fire, peering at the flames as they rise and fall.

Jonny’s relaying the tale of his last fight, or so Patrick can tell from the minimum amount of attention he's giving it. Something about David being harassed at school and Jonny getting into it with this kid, Quentin. There's new bruises scattered over Jonny's knuckles and jaw, a silent story Patrick wants to erase.

He moves off the blanket they sat out on the dirt ground and closer to the fire, close enough that he can extend his arm and stick the branch he’s holding, into the middle of the flames. It flickers to life immediately, burning down the stick almost too fast. It barely touches his fingers before he puts it out. He grabs another loose branch and starts again, mesmerized by the process of it. If he focuses on it hard enough his other thoughts begin to dissolve, disintegrating like the ash from a dried leaf. It's better. This way he doesn't have to think, not about Neal or his mom or anything. He can be blank. 

A body moves against his body, pressing in close against his side, Jonny's warm thigh next to Patrick's own. He touches Patrick's temple twice.

“Hey, get out of there,” he grins, a little exasperated. “Be here. Drink this.”

Patrick takes the open Hennessy bottle and downs a swig, grimaces. “This tastes like piss.”

“It’s all I could get my hands on in a hurry. Don’t complain.” He says, then pulls something from his pocket and drops it unceremoniously in Patrick’s lap.

“What’s this?”

“A phone,” Jonny offers helpfully, tone dry as ever.

Patrick squints at him. “No shit. Why are you giving it to me?”

“Because it’s yours. I bought it for you.”

Patrick squints harder. “You paid... for this?”

A grin creeps it’s way to the corner of Jonny’s mouth as he leans into Patrick’s side. “Okay, technically the guy who left it in Dairy Queen paid for it, but I picked it up so now it’s yours. You needed one anyway.”

Unbelievable.

“You fucking klepto,” Patrick laughs, thumbing over the screen. “Thanks. I-yeah. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” Jonny murmurs, grin a little wider now.

Patrick thinks maybe he could look at that grin for hours if he were allowed to, maybe years. He sets the phone safely behind him on the blanket and picks up another stick, for something to do. This time he lets the flame burn all the way down to the quick, bites his lip at the pinch and then picks up another, smaller one, and starts again. It sparks faster, traveling downwards towards his fingers in seconds. 

When the fire touches him now he can’t help the way he hisses, “Shit,” and blows cool air over his fingers to relieve the heat.

“You trying to set yourself on fire?” Jonny asks.

“No,” Patrick says. “It’s just a game, you see. If I can hold onto it until it burns out, I win. If I drop it, I lose.”

“Watch,” he says, and repeats the process. He chooses a bigger stick this time, which means a bigger flame, a fiercer sting. “Fuck,” he breathes, taking it in, shivering all over.

Jonny’s staring openly at him now.

“Does it...does it feel good?”

Patrick's buzzing, his head humming and body tingling sweetly from the alcohol. He sighs and closes his eyes, the world feels infinitely easier right now, far away.

“I don’t know. Kind of. It’s overwhelming.”

“And you like that?” he asks.

Before Patrick can answer, Jonny takes his hand, circling his wrist and bringing his blackened fingertips close. Jonny wipes them clean first with the hem of his shirt then brings them up to his mouth, blowing cool air over them like Patrick did. Soothing. A second passes, maybe two, and Patrick blinks, unprepared when Jonny flicks his tongue out and licks over first his pointer finger and then his middle. His tongue is slick and soft, and it feels amazing over Patrick’s sensitive nerve endings, even more electric when Jonny rakes his teeth over each pad and then bites down, just slightly; just enough to make Patrick throb and whimper.

Moving in closer like this is familiar, like a pattern they’ve both constructed together. Patrick leans in and Jonny places his free hand on Patrick’s thigh, up high, curling around him. He doesn’t move it upwards but Patrick can tell he wants to, that he’s waiting, like he always does.

They’re only inches apart and circling closer, like two planets sucked into some mutual vortex and spinning out of control. It’s happening now.

And Patrick’s heart is racing.

Jonny slides his hand up. “Tell me to stop.”

“I…”

“Tell me to stop right now,” Jonny whispers, hand trembling. There’s so much restraint in the way he’s holding himself back, in the way he won’t give in. 

Patrick thinks, if Mark was the soft let down then Jonny is the savage, endless yes.

“Don't stop,” he says, fists his hands in Jonny’s shirt and gives in for them both.

They collide mouths first, lips pressing together so quickly their teeth clack. Jonny’s grip moves up and up until he’s cupping Patrick’s dick through his jeans, causing him to moan wetly between kisses. He needs Jonny and he’s too far, never near enough. Too much space between them, always. Dragging him down and pressing him into the ground is easy, and he spreads himself on top, one of his legs slotted in between Jonny’s so he can rock against his thigh, press their bodies together so close it’s almost painful.

They’re rutting in the open, where anyone can see. There isn’t a soul around, but that doesn’t matter, it feels wild to be this reckless, to let the world see him touch Jonny with his mouth, as they’re hard beneath their jeans.

When they flip over, dicks aligning and Patrick gasping into the night, he goes a little mindless with want. He can feel Jonny in his every movement, in his desperate hands and his slick tongue, in his own goddamn blood. He can’t think. All he can hear is their shaking breaths and smacking lips, the rustle of leaves beneath their straining bodies. They’re a blur in the darkness, lighting it all up. 

“ _Jonny_.” He pants, reaching down inside Jonny’s boxers to take hold of his length because he has to, because he needs to feel it, run his palm over the leaking head.

“Oh fuck,” Jonny groans, sucking perfectly at Patrick’s bottom lip. He comes just like that, hovering over Patrick and blocking everything else out, as always, face tucked hotly against Patrick’s neck, kissing at his weak spots. Patrick follows minutes after, thundering and furious.

*

The chill in the air is what wakes Patrick from a dead sleep. He’s on the ground with Jonny wrapped around his back, the dewey damp grass seeping through the blanket. Goosebumps pebble his skin and he sits up slowly feeling gritty and hungover. Jonny stirs behind him, shifting around, grumbling to himself.

There’s fog clouds intertwined with the trees.

Patrick glances over his shoulder, watches muted as Jonny rubs at his sleep puffy eyes. In the low light of dawn he’s beautiful and blue hued. Patrick doesn’t want to leave him.

It hurts to feel this much.

“I should probably get home before the police come looking for me,” he says, then clears his throat.

“Yeah, me too,” Jonny replies. But he tugs Patrick backwards into his lap and kisses his dry mouth, their stale morning breaths mingling. 

*

His mom is waiting for him in the living room when he gets home.

“You lied,” she says from the couch. “You lied, again.”

He says, “What?”

He acts oblivious.

“You were gone all night,” she says. “I was worried sick. I didn’t get any sleep. And I know you haven’t been going to tutoring like you said. I called the school. So what’s going on?”

Patrick coughs, mind racing and yet empty. 

“Where were you?” she asks, expression twisted. “Why are you doing this?”

She looks so sad and, viciously, he’s repulsed by her, in a thousand tiny ways he’ll never say out loud, in the marks that have healed but never really disappeared.

“I’m sorry,” he says, but it isn’t true. She’s too late, a million miles off the mark, and she doesn’t even see it.

“I want you home right after school from now on. No more going to that neighbor kid’s house on the weekend’s either. That’s done.”

Patrick’s head snaps up, eyes on her. “Why?” he asks before he can stop himself.

“Because you need to focus on school.”

Patrick scrubs a hand over his face. He wants to scream. She doesn’t care about his grades, she never has. Not when he dropped out or any time after.

He doesn’t say that though, instead he asks, “Did you see him grab me?”

“Who?” she says, like she doesn’t know.

“Neal. Yesterday. Outside.”

She tucks a few strands of graying, undyed hair behind her ears, gaze on her tattered terrycloth robe. “I saw him touch your shoulder.”

“Are you serious?!”

“Yes? He said he touched your shoulder and you pushed him for no reason,” she explains, wringing her hands.

Patrick laughs. “I fucking hate you.”

“That’s enough, now.” His grandpa says as he walks into the room. Every wrinkle on his face is carved in, they all curl down like knotted tree branches around his mouth. “Don’t speak that way if you want to live here, son.”

“I don’t,” he says. The truth sweet on his tongue.

“Then leave.”

His mother starts to cry. Patrick ignores her.

“Gladly,” he says and goes to pack a bag. Again.

*

Before he walks out, he leaves his new cell number for Erica in between the pages of her pre-calc textbook, next to her worksheets and love notes for Bobby.

Then he goes into his dad’s room and presses his cheek to Dad’s forehead, just briefly.

“Goodbye,” he whispers. It feels final.

*

_**P:** Come to the front door I’m outside_

_**J:** What??_

_**P:** Just come out here please_

Patrick hits send on the text as the door opens, Jonny padding outside bare chested with only a pair of plaid sleep pants hanging from his hips.

“Hey,” he says, pulling Patrick into an easy kiss. “When I said I’d see you later I figured after we both got some more sleep. But now is okay. Now is good.”

“Jonny.”

“Yeah?” Jonny asks, kissing him again, like he can’t help himself.

Patrick wants to get lost in it.

“I have to go,” he forces out between one breath and another.

“What?”

“I can't stay at my grandpa’s. I have to go.”

Jonny looks confused. “You can stay here. My parents don't care.”

It’s a nice thought, but it won’t work.

“No, I mean I can't stay in Kingston anymore. I need to leave.”

It’s as if the sleep haze lifts then, Jonny’s eyes clear and expression growing alarmed. He draws Patrick in, palms cupping his elbows.

“Why? What's wrong?”

“I, um. My uncle is back. And he,” Patrick croaks. “I just...I can't. I need to leave. I need to go.”

“Go where?! Patrick, what the fuck? Tell me what's going on?”

He’s starting to freak out, the flush in his neck rising to his cheeks, his eyes wide and searching. It makes Patrick’s chest tight to see it so he grasps at Jonny’s forearms like a lifeline for a moment, then turns away. He tries to get the words out, he needs to explain. They won’t come. 

He begins to pace back and forth up the Toews’ porch, tugging at his own fingers, losing his hold on himself, on everything.

What the fuck is he going to do?

Jonny moves to stop him after a minute, and he doesn’t mean to, Patrick knows he doesn’t, because there’s isn’t a way for him to even be aware of it, but he grabs at Patrick’s sore shoulder in just the wrong spot. Patrick cries out, piercing in the quiet, and ducks away - or tries to. Jonny lets him go, for a second, startled by Patrick’s reaction. Then he’s near again, tugging Patrick’s shirt sleeve aside to see the fingerprint bruises there.

“Who did this?” Jonny asks. 

“My uncle,” Patrick says.

“Is this the first time?” 

Patrick steps away. One foot, then two, then all the way to the end of the porch so he doesn’t have to look at Jonny when he says, “No.”

It’s brighter out now, the world slowly coming alive around them. A bird chirps in a tree, a car drives down the block, everything is exactly the same except now Jonny knows the ugliest part of him. 

“Jon,” he says, because he doesn’t know what else to say.

“I’m gonna murder him,” Jonny bites out, livid. “I'm gonna cut his goddamn heart out of his chest.”

He looks like he wants to kick a door in or maybe smash one the porch chairs against the house, or even worse, march on over to Patrick’s grandpa’s and keep his word. As much as some fucked up and crooked piece inside of Patrick would love to see that he can’t have Jonny tangled up in this mess. It needs to end.

“I can't go back there,” he murmurs, stepping back into Jonny’s space, catching his attention.

“You're not going back there,” Jonny states, adamant.

“But I don't have anywhere else to go.”

“You can stay here, like I said.”

“Yeah for a day, maybe two. But then your mom or my mom and my grandpa will make me go back and I can't Jonny. I'll lose it. I can't. I can't. I can't. I can't,” he babbles.

He’s on the edge, he can feel it, his breaths coming in shallow. He can’t stay, but he can’t go back, but he has nowhere to go. He has nothing. He feels like a crazy person, but he can’t calm down.

“Patrick, stop. Look at me. We’ll leave. Now. Tonight. Let me pack some things, get some money and we’ll go. Just you and me, okay?”

“Go where?”

“Anywhere we want to. Okay?”

This is crazy. This is absolutely insane. But maybe if Jonny’s with him they’ll be alright, they’ll make it. Maybe, he thinks.

“Okay,” he agrees, shaking. “Yes.”

Jonny slams into motion. It takes a little over twenty minutes for him to return, duffle bag over his shoulder and keys in his hand. They get into Andree’s car, tires squealing as they pull out onto the street.

They drive all day and into the night.


	4. Chapter 4

There’s a sun roof in the Ford Explorer. Patrick opens it up and reclines his seat as Jonny takes I-87 South out of New York.

The cool breeze whipping against his face as they enter the freeway is a welcome relief and he sucks in huge gulps of air as his eyes search the sky. They’re leaving. They’re actually leaving.

“Where are we going?” he asks. 

“Where do you want to go?” Jonny replies.

Patrick wants to say anywhere, nowhere, somewhere with open spaces. It doesn’t make sense, even to him, and so he hums and lets the wind wash over him. A picture of his toes in wet sand is the first thing that comes into his mind, his arms stretched wide and touching only the outline of waves.

“The beach,” he says, more settled by the idea with every passing second.

Jonny’s hand cups around his knee and gently squeezes.

*

Breakfast is four bacon, egg, and cheese McMuffins, six hashbrowns, and two orange juices shared between them. Greasy fingers are cleaned with the hem of a shirt as they inhale their food in the McDonald’s parking lot.

Jonny’s phone is ringing. It’s rang approximately 784 times in the last two hours.

“Your mom again?”

Jonny sighs. “Yep. She keeps leaving voicemails like she thinks I’m going to listen to all of that. Get fucking real.”

“Turn it off?” 

“Probably a good idea. I’ll need to get a new one when we stop for a while.”

“A ‘new one’,” Patrick laughs, making air quotes.

“Shhhhh,” Jonny says, grin wicked as he tugs Patrick into a slick, dirty, open mouthed kiss, demanding and slow, and so so good.

Patrick melts back into his own seat panting afterwards, tongue running over his lips like he can still feel Jonny there. He’s warm with the sun shining through the windshield, his head lolling sideways, relaxed. _Mr. Brightside_ is on the radio and he turns the volume up.

*

The CVS in Richmond, Virginia, is more of a pit stop to gather supplies than anything else. Although Patrick enjoys the break to stretch his stiff legs, shuffling through the aisles at a leisurely pace.

Jonny has a red basket in one hand, filled to the brim with junk food, bottles of water, and energy drinks. There’s an oversized bag of Twizzlers he’s trying balance on top of the mountain of crap already in the basket, but it keeps sliding off, Jonny cursing every time he has to resituate items. Patrick could help, but he’s enjoying the show enough that he just follows behind coyly, pretending not to notice Jonny’s ever-worsening struggle.

“I can hear you laughing back there, you dick.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Patrick says.

Jonny turns then. “Yeah, yeah. C’mere.”

“No way.”

“Why not? Stop backing away.” 

“Stop coming toward me,” Patrick smiles.

Jonny reaches out for him, fast like a flash, but Patrick’s faster, slipping from his fingers and around to the next aisle. He has to zig-zag through several other customers as Jonny chases after him, their basket forgotten for now as they race around the store.

A grouchy looking grandma scowls at them beside the vitamins.

Patrick loses Jonny somewhere around the back of the store, near the refrigerated beer. He thinks about swiping one and fitting it under his jacket when a pair of arms wrap around his body.

“Gotcha,” Jonny says, leaning in to bite playfully at the juncture between Patrick’s neck and shoulder.

Patrick turns to bite back, at Jonny’s jaw or his chin, but catches his mouth instead, pressing up into it until Jonny turns him fully and pushes him against the glass door. They’re kissing like they’re in a hurry, like they need to devour each other completely and right this instant. He isn’t caught if he chooses to be here. If he chooses to hold Jonny to him. Someone titters off to the side, annoyed, but Patrick doesn’t give a shit, they can leave or they can watch, he isn’t going to stop. Yesterday he was being crunched under Neal’s iron grip. Now he’s here, unbound and running, not looking back.

*

At the North Carolina state line, they find a rest stop to take a piss. Jonny swipes a new phone while Patrick’s buying water from the vending machine. He gets a pack of Juicy Fruit bubblegum and fits it inside Jonny’s back pocket, gives his ass a quick squeeze. They swap the same piece back and forth for the next half hour, handing it off with the tips of their tongues while they sit on the hood of the car and make up stories for all the travelers that pull into the rest stop parking lot.

“See, that guy lives a double life.”

“And that woman has fifty-seven cats and they’re all named George.”

“They got married when they were nineteen, he’s still in love with her, but she hates him.”

“She’s a grandma coke addict.”

“He’s a stripper on the weekends.”

“Wait. What was the first guy’s secret life? The one with the khakis,” Patrick says.

“Oh, yeah. He was an accountant by day and a supervillain by night.”

“What made him turn to the darkside?”

“Math,” Jonny says, like it’s obvious.

“Hey, I like math,” Patrick says, frowning.

“You would,” Jonny rolls his eyes. Patrick flips him off then yanks him down into a sharp kiss so he can steal the gum back, sucking hotly on his tongue until Jonny shivers. When he tries to move closer, Patrick slips off the hood, smacking at the gum between his teeth.

“Do you miss math class?” Jonny asks. “Should we go back so you aren’t late for it?”

“It’s past three in the afternoon, Jon, school’s over. But it’s okay if you haven’t learned to tell time, I know numbers are hard.”

Jonny smiles at him shark-like and hops off the car, coming around to the passenger side where Patrick’s standing and leans in to kiss his neck. It starts off sweet, almost seductive, his tongue licking out over Patrick’s pulse point before he starts to suck, the biting sting of it curling Patrick’s toes.

“Jesus,” Patrick breathes, threading his fingers through Jonny’s hair and tugging until he hears him hiss.

“Too hard for you?” Jonny asks, like he’s somehow proven his point with this display. By the way Patrick’s boner is poking at Jonny’s thigh, he may have one. Not that Patrick will let him know that.

“Fuck off,” he says, rubbing himself up against Jonny for the barest hint of relief before shoving him aside to get in the car. In the side view mirror he can see a purple heart shaped bruise blossoming over his skin. “Let’s get back on the road.”

*

Myrtle Beach is dark by the time they arrive and Patrick expects it to be quieter, sleepy. It’s not. There are tourists everywhere, on the streets in shorts and tanks tops, in cars and restaurants, the streets alive with noise. It isn’t familiar like New York, but it isn’t as chaotic either and there’s comfort in that.

The first fleabag motel they find with an open room lets them pay in cash, the clerk a sleazy-eyed string bean that spends more time surveying Patrick’s body than Jonny’s ID. It etches a scowl across Jonny’s face, eyes darkening. Patrick tugs him away once they receive their key cards, puts him to work unloading the car of their bags and food as Patrick ventures inside the room. There are stains on the yellowed patterned wallpaper, rust on the faucet, dirt on the faded carpet, but there’s a working air-conditioner and clean sheets on the bed. It’s better than sleeping outside again.

Patrick takes the shower first. He strips mechanically while the water heats up, piling his clothes on top of the closed lid of the toilet. The spray isn’t strong, but it’s good enough, the water rushing over him, dissolving the grit and grime of the last twenty-four hours. The shampoo bottle in his hand shakes as he empties a dollop into his palm, pushing it into his hair as he closes his eyes, blanking it all out.

He fights it at first, the encroaching thought of what his family will do now that he’s gone, really gone. Will they look for him? Will they move on? Will they even care? 

He presses his hands to his face, palms digging into his eye sockets. He doesn’t want to think of this. They shouldn’t be able to follow him here, not here, but in the blackness his mother is crying, his grandpa so angry. He can picture it, their performative outrage, their relief that he’s left. Neal’s there too, watching, waiting. Two fists ready to hurt. His sisters all alone. The taste of bile rises at the back of his throat and Patrick presses his warm cheek to the cool tile of the wall, leans into it and tries to slow his quickening breaths. He doesn’t know what will happen tomorrow or next week. He doesn’t know what he’s doing. What felt so big and clear on the road, the miles passing them by, is shrinking now into something Patrick can’t hold onto. It’s all slipping from his grasp. 

The pocket-sized bar of soap settles between his feet. He picks it up.

He scrubs and scrubs at his skin, until he’s rose-stained, until he’s raw and cold under the raining water. It’ll never come off, the invisible claw marks that they all left. He’ll never be clean.

Jonny’s on the bed when Patrick emerges, curled on his side and eyes closed. The light from the bathroom spills into the dark leaving a soft yellow glow. When it touches over Jonny’s face, he shifts, blinking awake. Patrick stands in the middle of the carpet, unmoving as Jonny sits up and stares at him. Patrick stares back.

“C’mere,” he says, tipping his chin up.

Patrick doesn’t move.

Jonny frowns. He moves in increments, rolling off the bed, fitting his feet to the ground, taking each measured step until he’s standing in front of Patrick, eyes ever on him.

_Come to me_ , Patrick thinks and Jonny does, but he’s still too far away, even just these inches that separate them, they feel too much. He leans forward, swaying and Jonny catches him, pulling him in. He holds on even while Patrick’s arms stay locked at his sides, immobile. His throat is so tight, teeth clenched as he tries to keep it together. It’s been so long since the last time anyone’s touched him this gently. There’s a need in him to push away from it, a wounded animal protecting its weak spots. He slips back a step and Jonny tugs him closer, curls around him until Patrick’s caught, until he has no choice but to fight or go slack.

“I know I’m a fuck up,” Jonny says, quiet against Patrick’s ear. “But I won’t fuck this up.”

Patrick digs his nails into his palms and rests his forehead on Jonny’s shoulder. He opens his mouth to speak, but he doesn’t know what to say. He wants outside of his stupid head, his thunderous thoughts, the shallow breaths that won’t stop.

“Can I have you?” Jonny says.

Patrick drops the towel from around his waist, the damp cloth hitting the floor in answer. Dark eyes look him up and down, fingertips skimming over his spine, lips against his neck, his collarbone, the center of his chest. Jonny lowers to his knees, hands trailing with him and coming to rest on Patrick’s hips. There’s a kiss above his belly button, soft, another below, softer, wetter, Jonny’s tongue drawing a slick line down his lower abdomen to his cock.

Patrick gasps, loud in the quiet of the room, when Jonny runs a hand down the length of him and sucks the head into his mouth. He’s better at this than Patrick thought he might be, skillful, precise, but Patrick’s noticed Jonny’s a fast learner with most things he puts his mind to and this shouldn’t be a surprise. What’s stunning is the view of Jonny on his knees, his head bobbing back on forth along the length of Patrick’s spit-slick dick, one hand working the base and short circuiting Patrick’s brain. His legs go wobbly too soon, the first tug of his balls a warning he’s about to blow his load. He can barely speak, a garbled noise escaping from his throat as he tugs at Jonny’s hair when he starts to come.

Jonny swallows most of it down, the last few strings landing across his swollen lips and chin. He licks over his mouth and wipes at his chin, cleaning it on the motel comforter as Patrick leans into him, his entire body suddenly made of rubber. They manage to get on the bed, tangled together, and Jonny kicking the sheets away. He disappears for a moment, and Patrick can hear him rifling through some plastic bags, the ones they picked up earlier at CVS. When he returns, he’s naked and warm, and he kisses Patrick deeply, tongue sliding inside his mouth like it was sliding over his dick, and Patrick tastes the tang of himself on Jonny’s lips, unsure how he feels about the flavor. His eyes flutter shut.

“Wake up,” Jonny murmurs, huffing a laugh into Patrick’s neck. “Don’t fall asleep on me yet.”

“Give me a reason to stay awake then,” Patrick tells him, eyes still closed, and arms loose around Jonny’s shoulders.

There’s a hand between his legs, urging them apart, palms running up and down the sensitive skin of his inner thighs. Patrick shivers and jerks, as much from how it good it feels as from the tickling sensation of Jonny’s fingers traveling from the crease between his leg and groin to the crack of his ass, two slick fingers rubbing over his hole. This isn’t new, Patrick’s fingered himself before and much less delicately than the treatment Jonny’s bestowing upon him, but still, he can’t stop the low whine he makes anymore than he can the surge of his hips rolling up against Jonny’s fingers pressing inside of him. Everything goes fuzzy and slow for a few beats, his body tingling from his toes to the nape of his neck.

A string of moans leave his panting mouth breath by quick breath and Patrick can feel the heat blooming inside him, taking over. The only thing that subsides it is Jonny replacing his fingers with his cock and fucking into Patrick inch by thick inch. The stretch is more than he was expecting, more than he remembers from the rushed drunken times of before, their faces blurring together and indistinct. He opens his eyes, even through the sting of it, the biting pain more vivid now that he’s sober. Jonny’s looking down at him, expression intense, brow furrowed in concentration. He’s so solemn Patrick almost laughs, but gets caught up in the pretty flush of Jonny’s cheeks, blotchy and painted a dark pink beneath the moles that are scattered across his face. Patrick reaches up to thumb the ones that stand out by his mouth, deciding he should lick them and then lick Jonny’s lips too, so he does, drawing Jonny close and gasping out when that brings Jonny further inside his body.

They move like they’re underwater, grasping at each other in slow motion as they kiss, their bodies rocking together as the bed creaks below. Jonny’s thrusts pick up the pace before Patrick’s fully adjusted, but he doesn’t stop him, enjoying the sting ebbing into sizzling heat. Jonny can’t seem to keep a steady rhythm, alternating between a lazy pump of his hips to something too fast, his dick jack rabbiting over Patrick’s sensitive spots until he’s clawing at a muscular back. 

There’s sweat dripping from Jonny’s temples, his jaw tense. He’s barely holding it together and there’s something reassuring in knowing Patrick has that effect on him, that as imperfect as this is, Jonny’s his to keep in this moment all the same.

“Fuck,” he cries when Jonny’s hand brushes his dick. Jonny does it with purpose the second time, circling his fist around the leaking head and stroking along Patrick’s length, from balls to crown, his big hand making a warm tunnel for Patrick to sink back and forth into. Every second their skin touches is like another flame racing towards him, ready to burn him at both ends. He wants explode and be reborn in the ashes, he wants to be reignited again. _Good_ , he thinks, and _yes_ , and _please_. The words won’t quite come out, but they’re there, stuck in the back of his throat and seared into Jonny’s tongue sliding against his own.

It almost hurts when he comes, striping up his chest, to his neck, and in between the both of them. His eyes are squeezed shut and he misses the beginning of Jonny going off after him, mouth dropped open in a beautiful O and shoulder muscles straining to hold himself up. He flops down half on top of Patrick and half on the mattress, his face pressed to Patrick’s armpit, and unconcerned with the mess.

They fall asleep in those same positions and barely move until morning.

*

It’s late afternoon when they wake, the beach outside full of people, and sun high and crisp in the sky. The heat is cloying and they didn’t pack appropriately for the weather, too many long sleeved shirts and not enough shorts. There’s tourist shops up and down for miles around the beach and they go to several after eating a late lunch of steakburgers and fries. Jonny buys the food and the clothes with his dad’s debit card, only swiping a pair of sunglasses when the clerk isn’t looking for the fun of it. Patrick laughs and smooths his hands down the front of his new Hawaiian shirt, covered in black and white palm trees. 

He doesn’t think about the money, doesn’t even look at the bill.

“Here,” Jonny says, throwing Patrick the pair of aviators he pocketed. 

“For me?” Patrick says, hand over his heart. “You shouldn’t have.”

“It was nothing,” Jonny says, but he’s clearly pleased with himself.

Patrick slips on his shades and flips his new Miami Heat baseball cap backwards, humming to himself as they walk along the strip mall back toward the car.

“Guess that means I owe you. But I don’t have any money. You mind if I pay you back with a blowie?”

Jonny stumbles forward, the apples of his cheeks glowing. “I can go back and take the whole store for you if you want. Hold on.”

He moves as if he’s really going to do it, only stopping when Patrick wraps two arms around his middle and impedes his movement, laughing against Jonny’s broad back. 

*

The rest of the day is spent on the beach, napping on the sand and taking turns throwing each other around in the ocean, salty sea water mixed with each new kiss. Patrick’s faintly sunburnt all over by the time the sun begins to set. Jonny, unfairly bronzed and unaffected, promises to rub aloe vera into Patrick’s skin once they get back to the motel. 

They pick up fast food for dinner, munching on the bed as they watch an old movie on the cracked TV screen. Patrick wonders if his sisters are sitting with his dad and watching same the show. He wonders how long he’ll be able to hold out before he calls Erica.

Jonny showers while Patrick starfishes out across the bed in his underwear, too tired and skin too tender to bother messing with moving.

“Ready for the aloe vera?” Jonny asks emerging from the bathroom freshly clean and naked. Water droplets cling to his shoulders and the tips of his dark hair, a few rolling down his chest toward his soft dick.

“Yeah. Um, yes,” Patrick says, clearing his throat. This is first time he’s seeing all of Jonny with the lights on, nothing hidden by clothes or shadows. His brain might be melting inside his skull from the vision Jonny makes, all of the blood in his head rushing southward.

Jonny struts around the room a bit under Patrick’s appreciative gaze, clearly pleased with the attention as he gathers a few items from their growing pile of paper and plastic bags. At the sink, he brushes his teeth and drinks a few cups of water from the tap, Patrick’s eyes zeroed in on the flex of his ass and the way the muscles in his back bunch up and smooth out. When he turns around, he’s already half hard, cock swinging heavy and fat as he walks to the bed and gets on, settling behind Patrick. He flips open the cap of the aloe vera, warming it up between his palms before spreading it over Patrick’s shoulders, upper arms, and back.

“Turn over,” he says, nudging Patrick with his knee and Patrick goes, flipping around so Jonny can cover his front, his chest and stomach, then up to his neck and over his face. He uses two fingers to coat Patrick’s cheeks and nose, careful not smear any gel into his hair or eyes. 

Patrick watches the concentration on his face, the way he takes even the simplest task so very seriously. 

“I’m good,” he says, as Jonny’s finishing up. “Now let me suck you.”

Jonny’s eyes zero in on his mouth, his thumb brushing across Patrick’s lower lip. “You still want to?”

Patrick nods tightly. He bullies Jonny until he’s flat on his back in the middle of the bed, legs spread to accommodate Patrick between them. “I mean might as well, since we’re here and all,” he says on a shaky laugh.

Jonny cocks his head, his expression questioning, contemplative. When Patrick doesn’t make a move towards him, Jonny does it instead, sitting up and dragging Patrick close to straddle his lap. He reaches inside Patrick’s briefs, pushing them down to his thighs so he can lean forward and lick the head of Patrick’s dick. It’s unexpected and just as good as he remembered it from yesterday, Jonny’s mouth a beautiful furnace that sucks Patrick down like he’s dying for it. And Patrick can’t help the way his hips thrust forward, fucking Jonny’s throat as he pulls on his dark head of hair.

He doesn’t last long. Jonny moaning around him as his hands skim over Patrick’s balls, his taint, the crease of his ass. It’s as good as the last time, if not better. The ache of his sunburn secondary to his thumping pulse. Minutes pass as he regains his focus, coming back to himself.

Jonny’s still hard as fuck beneath him, leaking against his own belly. He’s waiting. 

Patrick's only done this once, and it was memorable for all the wrong reasons. Stoned out of his mind in the bathroom of Mark's apartment, he was shoved to his knees as this college kid named Jeremy half-choked him on his rancid noodle dick. There was piss on the floor around the toilet and the fluorescent light over the mirror kept flickering as Patrick tried to figure out why he ever wanted to try this in first place.

At the time he figured he'd never want to try again.

But.

Jonny likes to break all of his rules that way.

He's spread out on the bed still, golden, bare - so thick in Patrick's hand - soapy clean and nothing like the bitter flavored regrets of before. Everything about him in this moment is languid, as he licks his glossy lips, eyes hungry. He's tasting Patrick on his mouth, where Patrick came just a few minutes ago, down Jonny's throat and over his silky tongue. The shiver is involuntary, the curl of Jonny's smug grin purposeful, and Patrick stubbornly wants to scrub it away until Jonny's as much of a mess as he was, as he is right now.

He settles between Jonny’s legs and takes a few tentative licks at the plump head, enjoying Jonny’s eager moans and the slippery precome sliding from his slit down his crown. Patrick twirls his tongue around it all, lapping up the flavor, then takes it inside his mouth. Jonny doesn’t push him down, doesn’t force him to go faster, seemingly happy to let Patrick explore him, go at his own pace. And he does, cupping Jonny’s balls in one hand and rolling them around while he licks up from the base of Jonny’s cock to the tip and sucking him in again, bobbing his head for a few strokes before repeating the process. By the end of it, Patrick’s comfortable enough to let Jonny’s cock hit the back of his throat, his arms stretched out and rubbing over Jonny’s chest, flicking at his nipples, trailing over his abs. 

“Patrick, holy shit,” Jonny growls, body straining upwards.

His come is less pleasant than Patrick was expecting, heady and thick, but Patrick swallows what he can, rubbing the rest down over Jonny’s cock to bring him off until he’s too sensitive and writhing.

Jonny yanks Patrick down into his arms during the afterglow, kissing his swollen mouth and sucking the taste of himself from Patrick’s used tongue. Then he tucks Patrick against his side and holds him close until he falls into a deep sleep. Patrick might like that part best of all.

*

It’s the middle of the night and he’s wide awake. The air conditioner is rattling across the room, blowing the faded window curtain back and forth, back and forth. The light from the street flows in and out of the room; it’s a white blue glow, like the moon is trying to creep inside.

Jonny’s on his back, one leg pressed against Patrick and his arm splayed over Patrick’s stomach. Patrick runs his fingers over Jonny’s knuckles and then lifts his hand up, eases himself out of bed. 

There’s an ice and vending machine around the side of building. It’s sold out of almost everything except cherry coke and ginger ale. Patrick buys one of each from the handful of change he found in Jonny’s pocket, then reaches inside the ice machine for one cube, popping it into his mouth. He presses one of the cans to his damp, sweaty neck, leaning into the building, he lets out a long breath.

It’s too hot outside, muggy and thick with humidity. Patrick can’t catch a clean breath, can’t stop his racing thoughts. He doesn’t miss home, but he can’t stop thinking about it, can’t stop thinking about them. Erica’s only messaged him once since he left, from an unknown number, asking if he was okay. He’d said yes and she hadn’t replied. Nothing else. He wants to call her now, but she doesn’t have a cell phone and he isn’t calling the landline, won’t risk his mom or grandpa possibly picking up, trying to talk to him.

Seven-eight-six, he thinks. Five-three-three-three. 786-5333. It’s Bobby’s phone number. Patrick remembers it because Erica had said it over and over to herself when her and Bobby first started talking, would write it in all of her notebook margins and sometimes Patrick’s just to get on his nerves. She repeated it so much it turned into a jingle him, Jess, and Jackie would sing every time the phone rang and their mom would say the call was for Erica.

Seven-eight-six-five-three-three-three.

Patrick swaps the stolen cell in his pocket, replacing it with the ginger ale. He punches the digits into a text box and hits send before he can talk himself out of it.

_**P:** Hey, Bobert. How are my sisters?_

_**B:** Pat?_

_**P:** Yeah._

_**B:** Where the fuck are you???? Erica’s been freaking out._

_**P:** Is she okay?!_

_**B:** Yeah man but she’s worried. She wants to know where you are. If you’re okay. They all do_

_**P:** Probably better if I don’t say for now. But let Erica know I’m fine. I’m good. I’m with Jonny._

_**B:** Are you coming back?_

_**P:** I don’t know._

_**P:** Can you do me a favor? A big favor?_

_**B:** Okay_

_**P:** Look out for my sisters while I’m gone. Please._

_**B:** I don’t understand what the fuck is going on man_

_**P:** I know. I’m sorry. But please. Just keep them away from my uncle when you can._

_**B:** I will_

_**P:** Thank you._

_**B:** Erica’s gonna want regular updates_

_**P:** I figured._

_**B:** Stay safe Pat. Wherever the hell you are_

_**P:** See ya Bobert._

Patrick clutches the phone in his hand and inhales slowly, exhaling in small increments. He tilts his head back, his skull bumping against brick as he looks skyward, the night is clear and crisp, dotted with a thousand flecks of light.

He still has no idea what the fuck he’s doing, what will happen tomorrow, if they’ll be alright. When he tries too hard to see what’s coming it’s like he’s climbing up the side of a house with no ladder, grasping at a roof made of sticks.

From several feet way he hears a door open and shut, an older man with graying hair walks toward an old brown buick, a girl half his age, possibly younger, trailing behind him. Her yellow zebra print mini skirt is riding up her thigh, almost exposing her ass. She doesn’t fix it, too busy trying to light the cigarette between her fingers as she limps to the passenger side of the car. 

“Hurry the fuck up!” the man yells.

She limps faster.

Patrick watches them drive away, the Buick spitting fumes as it pulls recklessly onto the street and away. He goes back to the room.

Inside Jonny’s awake and sitting at the end of the bed, feet flat on the floor and his hair in a thousand different angles. His eyes are a mixture of hazy confusion and blinking alarm.

Patrick sets the drinks on the table by the window and walks forward.

“Jonny?”

“You left,” Jonny says, standing. He’s naked, his hands open at his sides, palms up.

“I didn’t,” Patrick says, stepping in front of him, their bare toes touching. “I just went to get a drink.”

Jonny shakes his head, almost like he isn’t quite sure he believes what he’s seeing for a second. “You weren’t here when I woke up and I…”

Patrick smooths his hands up and down Jonny’s chest, over his ribs, around his strong back. “Hey, I’m here. I’m here.”

“Yeah?” Jonny asks, holding Patrick close, looking into him, pupils blown wide.

“Yes. I promise,” Patrick says.

And then they’re kissing, rapidly, ravenously, tongues shoved inside each other’s mouths and fingers grasping at skin. Jonny tugs Patrick’s shorts off his waist in a rush, dragging him to the bed and slotting their legs together. His hands are everywhere, his mouth rough. Patrick doesn’t close his eyes, he wants to see, that black-eyed hunger in Jonny spreading to Patrick, blocking out the rest of the world. Patrick goes with him, jumps blindly, all other thoughts that aren’t Jonny dissolving into thin air.

*

The following days are like a daydream vacation. Patrick shuts out everything that isn’t Jonny. They sleep all day and fuck all night, lazy afternoons are spent on the beach until they get tired of the sand and the crying children and take up camp at the motel pool, stretched out on lounge chairs and sharing stolen cigarettes. Jonny wears the red heart Lolita sunglasses Patrick made him buy at a novelty shop right before the clerk at the liquor store next door caught them pocketing a small bottle of vodka.

He’d chased them down the street, threatening and swearing, but unable to keep up. The adrenaline pumping through Patrick’s veins and how they’d sped away to freedom was a new kind of high, almost better than the alcohol now warming his blood. 

This isn’t real life.

He’s too hot from the sun beating down on him and the buzz sizzling inside his skin, but he moves to where Jonny’s wading in the pool, wet all over, swim trunks slung low.

There’s no one else around.

A new song on Jonny’s phone kicks on and Patrick mouths the lyrics to himself as he slides into the deep end, the water a cool reprieve.

_With your feet in the air and your head on the ground. Try this trick and spin it, yeah. Your head will collapse if there's nothing in it…_

He lets himself sink to the bottom, every sound muffled and far away, but he knows the words by heart.

_And you’ll ask yourself. Where is my mind? Where is my mind?_

He holds his breath for fives seconds, ten, twenty, thirty, his lungs beginning to burn. He’s rising, floating to the top and he kicks out his legs and tries to stay under, tries to see if he can hold out. But then Jonny’s arms are around his middle, pulling him up, oxygen flooding his lungs as he wraps himself around the body hugging him close. 

“You’ll need more suntan lotion soon,” Jonny says.

Patrick grumbles unintelligibly in response, licking at Jonny’s wet neck, biting the join of his shoulder, and gasping when a hand slides inside his swim trunks, fits around his dick.

“What are you doing?” Patrick asks. His legs around Jonny’s waist and hips fucking up into Jonny’s grip of their own volition. He’s trying to keep his eyes open, to watch for anyone that could walk up, but they’re fighting to roll back in his head.

“Jacking you off in an outdoor pool.” Jonny says, sucking a bruise onto Patrick’s chest, another onto his shoulder, adding to the ones that have already begun to fade. A tiny collection.

“Someone could see,” Patrick whispers, although he’s not sure why.

Jonny gives a sly smile. “That’s very true. You want me to stop?”

“No.”

“You sure?”

Patrick growls. “Shut up and keep going.”

Jonny laughs, moving in to take Patrick’s mouth.

The friction is almost too much and yet not enough, but he’s close anyway, his body so easy for Jonny’s touch. They suck each other’s tongues like they all have day, like they have a lifetime to waste spinning around in this forgotten swimming pool.

“You should teach me how to drive,” Patrick says, the thought popping into his mind out of nowhere.

Jonny quirks an eyebrow at him. “Oh yeah? And what do I get in return for my services?”

Patrick’s hums in thought, scrapes his teeth of over the edge of Jonny’s jaw, whispers. “You can fuck me in the car afterwards?”

He ducks his head once the words are out, feeling distinctly less bold once they’ve have been spoken aloud.

“Okay!” Jonny says, pulling his hand free from Patrick’s trunks and separating them to lift himself out of the pool.

Patrick’s suddenly left alone, kicking his legs to stay above the water and his dick still hard as rocks. “What?” he asks, dazed, bereft.

“Well, c’mon. Let’s get it started!” Jonny says, almost gleeful, already dried off and beginning to collect his things.

“Asshole,” Patrick shouts.

Jonny winks at him.

*

The first lesson is held in an empty parking lot of a now-vacant Joe’s Crab Shack. To say it goes well would be a lie. Patrick drives over a concrete parking block, almost swipes the side of the building, and argues the entire time with Jonny about where ten and two are located on the steering wheel.

Jonny’s flushed in splotchy patches from his forehead to his chest by the time they’re finished, his mouth a tight line as Patrick laughs at him, luring him into the backseat to fulfill his half of the bargain. They fuck in the cramped space, clothes still half on and twilight beginning to fall like a sheer curtain around them.

“We’re never doing that again,” Jonny says, pissy and smeared with come. He’s been rolling his shoulders for the last few minutes, trying to work a cramp out.

“We’re definitely doing that again,” Patrick says, leaning in to lick a stripe up Jonny’s sweaty neck. And whether he means the driving lesson or the car sex, it still applies.

Jonny refuses to let Patrick drive back to the motel.

“That dent was there before, right?” Patrick asks when they’re walking into their room.

“Ummm.”

“Sorry.”

“No, you’re not,” Jonny says, fighting a grin.

He’s right. Patrick isn’t even close to being sorry, but he does blow Jonny in the shower in apology anyway.

*

There’s a phone ringing somewhere in the room, somewhere in the corner and it won’t stop. Patrick’s groggy as he squints, the light low everywhere with the curtains drawn, but the sun still blazing outside. Jonny rises from the bed, untangling his body from Patrick’s as Patrick shoves his face back into his pillow. He can hear the padding of bare feet and the rustle of clothing and then the ringing goes silent, followed by the tapping of fingers against a screen.

There’s a sigh and then silence, so quiet Patrick lifts his head, looking over his shoulder to see what Jonny’s doing. He’s just standing there, a tall statue with a bowed head.

“Jonny?”

Jonny startles at the sound of his own name, dropping the phone on top of the pair of shorts he must’ve found it in, and diving back on the bed. He climbs over Patrick, pressing him into the mattress as he kisses his neck.

“Who was that?” Patrick breathes, still sleepy and tingly.

Jonny ignores his question for a minute, busy sucking a new hickey on Patrick’s shoulder next to a fading one, then another on top of the old.

“My dad,” he says. “Trying to get me to come home.”

_Do you want to?_ Patrick almost asks. He doesn’t want to know, but he’s curious, the possibility that Jonny’s considering it churning his stomach to the point he thinks he might gag with the need to vomit.

“Need to piss,” he says, sliding out from under Jonny and rushing to the bathroom. He turns on the tap and splashes cold water on his face. Hands gripping the porcelain as he steadies his himself. Jonny had stolen a new phone the day they left, at the rest stop, Patrick doesn’t even remember seeing him pocket it, can’t remember where it came from, but he had. Patrick figured Jonny would trash the old phone after picking up the new one, but he hasn’t. Sometimes he catches Jonny turning it on, checking the messages, and turning it off. He tries to hide it. Patrick doesn’t know why he tries to hide it.

Patrick thinks of his sisters, the leather couch in Jonny’s basement, Andree’s homemade pizza. He doesn’t miss his grandpa’s house or Kingston. He can’t go back. He can’t.

“Patrick!” Jonny shouts from the other side of the door. “Patrick. Pat-trick. PAT-RICK.”

There’s pounding from their neighbors on the opposite side of the wall telling them to shut the fuck up, but Jonny’s still calling his name, being obnoxiously loud. Patrick hurries to take a piss, wash his hands, and dry off his face, opening the door before Jonny can get any louder, if possible.

“What?!” Patrick says, arms raised in question.

Jonny laughs. “You were taking forever. Come here.”

“Oh my god, you psycho. It was two minutes,” Patrick says, but goes anyway.

Jonny folds him back into his arms once he’s on the bed again, pecking at his mouth and jaw, nipping at his earlobe.

“We should go out tonight,” he says, low in Patrick’s ear.

Patrick shivers. “Go where?”

“Anywhere. Doesn’t matter.”

“Why tonight?” Patrick asks. They haven’t done much exploring of the city’s nightlife so far, too preoccupied with fucking each other until they’re sweat-sticky, filthy, and blind.

“For my birthday,” Jonny says, nonchalant.

Patrick’s brain stops for a moment, processing that response. He had no idea. They’ve never talked about it, their birthdays, and Patrick doesn’t know why. 

“It’s your birthday?”

“The big one-eight.”

Jonny’s birthday and he’s hundreds of miles away from his home and family. His birthday and the only one here to make it special is Patrick. Unfortunate for Jonny.

He kisses Jonny’s lips, tonguing at his mouth and ignoring the bitter morning breath. He kisses him slow, fingers threading into his hair and rubbing his thigh over a hardening dick. “You’re right. We have to celebrate. And have a cake.”

“What kind of cake?”

“Whatever kind you like. Shit! I need to get you a present. I don’t have anything.”

“I don’t need anything,” Jonny says, but the way he’s pawing at Patrick’s ass, trying to get his boxers off, implies otherwise.

“You do,” Patrick says, twisting away. “It’s happening.”

Jonny frowns. “Are you going now?”

Patrick hops from the bed to the clothes pile in the corner of the room, yanking up his boxers and searching for a cleanish pair of shorts to wear.

“Well, yeah. It’s not like you gave me advanced notice, but I’ll be back in a bit. Text me where we’re meeting up for dinner. Your choice.”

He grabs a wad of cash from one of Jonny’s pants pockets after he’s dressed, making sure his phone is charged and he has a room key, just in case. Jonny’s naked under the sheets, his head pillowed on one arm as his eyes track Patrick moving towards the front door.

They haven’t been apart for any length of time since they left New York and it’s weird to be leaving him now, unsettling. Patrick lingers in the doorway, just a moment, eyes catching on Jonny’s.

“Don’t be gone long,” he says, smiling.

And Patrick hesitates, almost turning back, before he shakes himself and goes.

The walk from the motel to the nearest shopping center is a few miles, but he isn’t ready to take the car alone yet and doesn’t want to waste the cash they have on a cab. By the time he finds the shop he was looking for, he’s flushed from the heat and his armpits are dripping. The trouble it took getting there is worth it when he walks back into the Sunglass Hut and finds the black leather braided bracelet Jonny had been eyeing when they were there earlier that week. Kroger grocery store is next, then the liquor store, where he’s almost caught slipping the bottle of Fireball into his waistband.

_**J:** I’m getting subs from that sandwich place we had the other night. What do you want?_

_**P:** Turkey and bacon whatever. No cucumber._

_**J:** What time?_

_**P:** On my way back now. Meet me at that spot on the beach near the rocks. The one that was empty. Bring the food!_

_**J:** Well, I was planning on eating it all without you, but since you asked so nicely…_

_**P:** You’re so funny holy shit idk how I handle it you’re the funniest fucking person I’ve ever met!!!!!!!_

_**J:** I know ;)_

Patrick’s face hurts from smiling, and he tries to school his expression as people passing him by on the sidewalk shoot him looks from the corners of their eyes. Jonny’s so stupid, and it’s ridiculous that there’s this thrumming energy pulsating through him, making him vibrate and quicken his step in the hopes of getting back to Jonny sooner. It’s only been a few hours. Too long, and Patrick is itchy with the need to touch him again, to feel him near.

If his hands weren’t full, he’d press his fingers to the bruises scattered over his neck and shoulders, that achy throb causing his belly to warm down deep.

The sun is beginning to set by the time Jonny arrives at the beach with the food in tow, Patrick’s little spread ready and waiting for him. He opens the bag with the bracelet first, thumb brushing over the silver clasp where Patrick used his knife to carve their initials, and slipping it on his wrist before he even takes the price tag off.

“Like it?” Patrick asks, quiet.

Jonny kisses him in answer, kissing him until he goes dizzy from lack of oxygen and the world tilts to the side as he grasps at Jonny’s shirt.

They eat their sub sandwiches listening to the crashing waves, the seagulls chirping near the water’s edge, their shoulders pressed together as the sky melts into a dark purple.

“Let me see your lighter.” Patrick says as he hunkers over one of the plastic bags to light the candles he bought for Jonny’s pink birthday cake.

Jonny cackles when he sees it, forefinger dipping into the icing for a taste as the tiny wax candles drip.

“Hey, that’s cheating!”

“It’s my birthday, I can do what I want,” Jonny sings, blowing his candles out with his eyes wide open.

“No wish?” Patrick asks, removing the melted candles one by one. They cut uneven slices with their fingers, eating with their hands as Patrick forgot to purchase plastic forks.

Jonny shoves a huge bite of the chocolate monstrosity into his mouth, the pink icing smearing over his lips. Patrick wants to lick him clean.

“Don’t need it,” he says, the words garbled around the food in his mouth.

Patrick bites at the inside of cheek to stop himself from making a dumb face, and takes a bite of cake himself.

They each eat two more pieces, chasing it with the bottle of Fireball until their tongues are numb and the idea of grinding their dicks together on an open beach doesn’t sound like a half bad idea.

The sand argues otherwise.

“This year is so much better than last year,” Jonny pants, spread out on his back, Patrick between his legs, and come cooling on their bellies. “Last year I spent like 4 hours in the ER with the worst migraine I’ve ever had and then the rest of the day in bed. My mom fucking hovering over me the whole time.”

Patrick rests his head on Jonny’s chest, feeling floaty and warm and invincible. “She loves you.”

“I know. But she can’t make it go away. She thinks if she just...Anyway. This is better. This is worth all of that shit last year.”

_Make what go away?_ Patrick thinks. _The migraines?_

“Yeah?” he asks.

“Absolutely,” Jonny murmurs, tugging Patrick’s shirt up to touch his bare skin, drawing lines up and down his spine. “Let’s go back to the room. I want to get naked.”

*

“You ever had someone lick you out before?”

“No. Have you?”

“Yeah, it’s good. It’s really good,” Jonny says, his head between Patrick’s legs, lips caressing Patrick’s inner thigh. “I like it even better when I’m the one doing it. Using my mouth. My tongue.”

Patrick’s come once tonight so he shouldn’t be this hard, his dick shouldn’t be leaking this much on his stomach, a stream of it falling into his belly button. Yet here he is, legs pushed back against his chest as Jonny fondles his balls, his fingers circling Patrick’s hole teasingly. 

“You think you got what it takes to get me off on the first try?” he swallows, his voicing dropping an octave.

Jonny’s grin is evil. “Definitely. Never had a complaint before.”

Patrick looks away.

“What?” 

“Don’t talk about them.”

Jonny cocks his head. “You don't like me talking about the other guys I've touched?”

“Fuck no,” Patrick says, squirming under Jonny’s heated gaze. He tries to pull back, but Jonny moves with him. 

He sucks a kiss into Patrick’s ass cheek. “You're pretty hot when you're jealous, you know.”

Patrick scowls. “Am I?”

Jonny’s grin widens. “I mean you're always hot. But I've wanted you for a while.”

There were signs, moments, touches. Patrick thinks he knew this. Knows this. To hear it said out loud, though, makes something inside him trip, his breath catching. 

“How long?”

“You know,” Jonny says, ducking his head. He nuzzles at Patrick’s other thigh, his big hands cupped around Patrick’s hips.

“Do I? Tell me anyway.”

“Since that first day,” he says, the words quiet and muffled, pressed into Patrick’s skin.

“Me too,” Patrick whispers.

Jonny leans up on his arms, pushing his weight forward to take Patrick’s mouth once, quick. He dives back down between his legs after, licking wetly at Patrick’s hole, doing it again and again the louder Patrick moans. Then there’s very little talking for a while.

*

They’re back at Kroger two days later, a cart full of clean underwear, shampoo, toothpaste, and food. They only have fifty bucks in cash left from the five hundred they’d originally taken out of an ATM the week before. They need to take more out soon. It’s easier than trying to use Bryan Toews’ debit card everywhere, easier to avoid the people that ask for identification with Jonny’s forged signature.

They unload their cart onto the conveyor belt at the cash register, Patrick watching the bag boy stuff their items into plastic bags with an empty expression and little consideration for what’s going where.

“That’ll be $74.52,” the clerks says, once everything has been scanned.

Jonny extracts the debit card from his wallet, sliding it through the card reader. He punches in the pin number, waiting for the receipt when the clerk says it didn’t go through, to slide the card through again. He does. Twice.

“It’s saying your card is declined,” the clerk tells them, as bored as the bag boy.

“Can I try it again?” Jonny asks.

“Sure.”

He does and it’s the same result.

“One more time,” Jonny says, voice tight.

“Sure,” the clerk nods, but they all know what the result will be now.

People are starting to stare. The soccer mom behind them becoming impatient with waiting, tapping her french manicure against the shopping cart handle bar.

They leave without buying anything and drive back to the motel. The car, Patrick notices, only has half a tank of gas left. They haven’t eaten all day. They haven’t washed any of their clothes, new or old, in a week.

They only have fifty dollars and some stale pizza from the night before. Fifty-one dollars and eighty-two cents.

Patrick’s climbing, trying to grasp at the side of that house again, trying to pull himself up, to find something to hold onto. He finds purchase, just for a moment, at the very edge, and then the roof caves in.


	5. Chapter 5

Jonny’s pacing around the room like he’s looking for a fight. He’s been pacing ever since they returned from the grocery store, ever since they’d stopped at three different ATMs, trying to withdraw money, trying something, anything, to no avail. He’s knocked down a chair and one of the bedside lamps, bypassing the television that he keeps eyeing.

_What are we going to do?_ Patrick wants to ask. 

The words are lodged in the back of his throat, his hands fisted in the dirty hotel comforter he’s sitting on. He sucks in a breath of air, choking as it catches not once, but twice. 

He stands and moves towards the door, hand around the door knob, turning, and then he’s walking.

Jonny’s behind him.

“Where are we going?” he asks.

“I don’t know,” Patrick says. “The beach.”

Jonny grabs his hand and starts to run, pulling him along as the sun beats down on top of them. They run until they’re sweating, until their feet hit sand and they’re pulling off their shoes and shirts, until they’re crashing against the waves coming into the shore.

They’re swimming out farther than they should, fighting the water that wants to drag them back in. It feels good to steel himself, to tense his muscles against the force of the ocean pushing at him, slamming into him. He coughs on the salt water filling his lungs and imagines he can swim across the entire Atlantic on sheer will and this gritty need to tell the world to fuck off.

He wrestles with the tide, but the tide wins, and as he’s brought back to shore there Jonny is, arms open, jaw tense. If he wanted to beat every last grain of sand into submission, Patrick would be the fist, if he needed. He wants to watch everything on this beach break apart. Everything that’s not him and Jonny, the tenuous string keeping them together.

“We can’t stay here,” Patrick breathes. 

“I know,” Jonny says, teeth gritted. “Fuck. _FUCK_.”

*

They go back to the room and don’t leave for two days. They eat the stale pizza until it’s gone and then order another, parsing out enough pieces to last them for lunch, dinner, and breakfast the following morning. They fuck, sleep, watch mindless daytime TV for hours, and don’t talk about what’s going to happen next.

Jonny’s phone rings and he turns it off. He doesn’t turn it back on.

On the third day, Patrick wakes to Jonny emerging from the bathroom, freshly showered and wet. He frowns, momentarily irritated Jonny didn’t invite him to join, and watches through blurry eyes as Jonny drops his towel, beginning to dress instead of coming back to bed.

“Where are you going?”

“We need toothpaste and lube and some other supplies. I’m gonna make a quick trip to that Walgreens a few blocks over. I’ll be back in an hour,” Jonny says.

The backpacks they brought with them from Kingston are on the floor, in the corner of the room, still filled with most of the old clothes and items they originally stuffed inside. Jonny takes out a pair of shorts and throws them in the pile of newer clothes they bought before the card went dead. He fits the straps of the backpack over his shoulders.

“I’ll come with you,” Patrick says, slipping off the bed. He can’t remember where his last semi-clean pair of boxers went. He might have to turn a dirty pair inside out.

“I can do it on my own,” Jonny says, fitting his foot into a flip flop. He pauses, then takes it off again, seemingly considering what he’s about to go do and reaches for his tennis shoes instead.

Patrick does the same, only not foregoing socks even if they are crusty and stiff from dried sweat. The prospect of dirty socks is infinitely more appealing than blisters if they have to make a run for it.

“I know? But it’ll be easier if I distract the cashier, play decoy while you grab stuff,” he replies.

Jonny shrugs, mumbling something Patrick can’t hear. He’s being pissy, has been on and off for days. He isn’t sleeping well either, tossing and turning through the night, pretending he’s fine when they’re both awake, like Patrick can’t see, like Patrick isn’t just as lost about what they’re going to do or where they’re going to go from here. He throws on clothes quickly, grabbing his own bag without removing anything inside and grabbing a keycard off the TV stand. Jonny’s waiting outside, impatient, moody, the skin below his eyes puffy and red.

They forego using the car, not wanting to waste gas, and walk the few blocks in silence. The sky is a murky pea green, rain clouds hovering. It’s already rained once today, the ground slick and every breath Patrick takes feels sticky inside his lungs with the hanging humidity. The southern heat is tiresome and Patrick’s ready to move on, to go somewhere else, maybe travel west. Jonny hasn’t said one thing about his feelings on South Carolina, the weather, moving on, staying here. Patrick wants to ask, but he can’t bring himself to break this fragile quiet they’ve been building up for the past several days. If he asks and Jonny says he wants to go back, Patrick doesn’t know what he’ll do. And sometimes the not knowing is worse and sometimes it’s better - better not to have to face the truth.

“If we don’t have to run, meet me outside a few minutes after I leave,” Jonny says, face pinched. He rubs at his left temple with two fingers.

Patrick laughs, elbows Jonny’s side. “I’ve done this before, you know. I’m good.”

Jonny grunts, shrugging as he brushes past Patrick and around the side of the building, to the Walgreen’s entrance. Patrick watches him walk inside and counts to sixty, then counts again, before following him in. 

The cashier working the register doesn’t even bother to look up when Patrick walks by, too busy on his phone, texting, possibly playing a game. Jonny’s in the back of the store, out of sight, so Patrick stays near the front, screwing around with the lighters and five dollar tourist trinkets. He wonders if this kid would even notice if he pocketed some gum, so he does, two packs, one for Jonny. He takes a silver Zippo lighter too, and a candy bar. 

The automated doors whoosh open as two guys enter, talking like they don’t care if anybody hears their conversation. Patrick slips the beef jerky stick he was going for back into its container, uses his peripheral vision to catch where the guys are going and where Jonny is in relation to them.

They head for the back where the refrigerated beverages are, Green Mullet complaining about his girlfriend to Alligator T-shirt, who doesn’t seem to be listening.

Patrick can’t find Jonny, not without being more obvious about it. He picks up a US Weekly instead and pretends to intently read an article about Kim Kardashian.

“Can I help you with something?” the cashier asks.

“Um,” Patrick says, caught out. “Do you, uh, have anymore of the, um, Teriyaki flavored beef jerky or just the original?”

“Whatever’s out is what we have,” the cashier says and goes back to his phone.

Patrick leaves, not wanting to attract any more attention. He counts to 60 four times. He pulls out his phone and watches minutes tick by, about to walk back in when Jonny rounds the side of the building.

“That took forever,” he says, grabbing at Jonny’s shirt once he’s close, needing him closer. “What was the hold up?”

Jonny fits his hand over Patrick’s forearm, his skin hot to the touch. “Couldn’t find the Tylenol at first. I got everything else.”

“Good. Let’s get out of this fucking heat before you melt.”

The side of Jonny’s mouth curves, his eyes softer now, but still tired. “Probably need another shower. I’ve got sweat dripping down my ass crack.”

“I can probably help you with that, you know, if I’m invited this time.”

“Only if I get to clean your ass crack too,” Jonny says, shameless.

Patrick laughs, at this ridiculous conversation, and his life, and the very real sweat clinging to every inch of his body in this 100-degree weather, ass crack included. Even through the heat, he presses his forehead to Jonny’s chest, glad for the moment that Jonny’s smiling, that they have new food to eat, that he has a nice, cool shower with a naked Jonny to look forward to in the immediate future. 

Behind them Patrick can hear voices, moving near.

“She won’t fuckin’ shut up about it, and if I have to hear bitchin’ one more time, I swear to Christ I’m gonna backhand her.”

It’s Green Mullet and Alligator T-shirt. They have a twenty-four pack of Budweiser, two cans already popped out of the box and open as they bypass Patrick and Jonny.

Green Mullet chugs from his beer, eyes narrowing when he takes them in, the way they’re touching, the proximity of their bodies. Alligator T-shirt follows his line of sight and then they’re both looking, watching. Patrick’s stomach rolls unpleasantly at the way they slow their pace, at the way they both sneer in his and Jonny’s direction.

“Faggots,” Alligator T-shirt says, like he’s tasting bile at the back of his throat, like he’s looking at a bug on the wall.

And Patrick’s not surprised, not by the word or the hateful way it’s said. It stings more than it should, but he’s seen that look on his grandpa’s face before, on Neal’s, and he recognizes the ugliness of it, the way it’s familiar even if it’s the first time it’s ever been directed at him.

Jonny stiffens, his jaw going taut, his head swiveling around to catch who spoke. He’s barely moved but Patrick can already see his hackles rising, his hands clenched into fists.

“Fuck off!” he throws back, every bit as stubborn now as that day Patrick found him fighting in his front yard.

They’re going to fight, right now, Patrick can see it. Even before it happens, he can see them moving forward, prowling, as Jonny brings himself to his full height, taller than them both and nowhere near as big. Alligator T-shirt is thick through the middle, his arms like tree trunks and tanned up to his bicep, probably some type of construction worker. His hands are full of bruises and blackened fingernails.

“What’d you say to me, cocksucker? What’d you say?!” Alligator T-shirt shouts. He’s up in Jonny’s face before Patrick’s even had time to blink; they both are, bracketing each side of Jonny, trying to intimidate, to threaten.

Jonny doesn’t respond, doesn’t back down. He simply cocks his clenched fist and smashes it into the guy’s bearded face. 

Everything happens quickly after that. A punch lands square on Jonny’s abdomen, another on his ribs, as Jonny strikes one of them against his jaw, the other directly on his eye socket, again on his throat. Green Mullet bends over gasping for air and Patrick watches, frozen and flinching as Alligator T-shirt slams Jonny into the side of the building, the breath knocked out of his lungs. Patrick slides the backpack from his shoulders and swings it as hard as he can into the guy’s back, enough to make him stumble away from Jonny, to let Jonny break free. And then there’s a fist hammering into his kidney, a foot at the back of his knee and Patrick falls forward as a police siren blares in the distance.

There’s scrambling and hissed curses as Patrick presses a hand to his side, as he tries not to plummet to the pavement.

An arm circles around his chest, pulling him up, yanking him to his feet.

“C’mon,” Jonny pants. “Patrick, c’mon. We gotta go.”

He has both of their backpacks in one arm, attempting to drag Patrick away with the other. Down the road, he can see Green Mullet and Alligator T-shirt running as the cop car races after them; they scatter in two directions before disappearing out of sight, the siren soon fading.

They limp back to the motel faster than it took them to originally walk there, dripping with sweat and adrenaline pumping. Jonny isn’t bleeding anywhere that Patrick can see, but that doesn’t mean he’s okay. They need to get inside the room so Patrick can look him over. Except the keycard for their door isn’t working. Of all the times for it not to work of course it has to be now. Patrick tries it again. And again. And again.

“Shit,” he says.

“Let me try mine,” Jonny says, patting at his pockets. He finds his key and gives it five tries. None of them work.

“They locked us out.”

“Well, they need to let us back in to get our stuff.”

Patrick wipes a hand over his face and sweaty brow. He needs to think, but he can’t fucking think. “We can’t pay them. There’s only twenty bucks left. If we ask them to open up, they’ll probably call the cops on us,” Patrick says, mind racing.

Almost everything new they bought is inside that room: the clothes, the shoes, mixed in with the old. Inside Patrick’s backpack is a change of pants, his Lafontaine jersey, and a long sleeved flannel. Jonny might have even less in his own backpack.

“Do you have the car keys?”

“Yeah,” Jonny says, staring at the door. “Maybe I can break it down and we can get our shit out real quick.”

Patrick stares at him, wide-eyed. “What? You’re just going to kick it in?”

“Worth a try, right?” Jonny says, smiling. He’s flushed and hunched to one side, his hair wild, something a little unhinged hiding behind his grin.

He kicks at the center of the door with the toe of his foot at first, then switches to the flat part of the bottom of his shoe, like he’s trying to shove the door in with the force of his frustration alone. Patrick’s holding their bags, watching Jonny try to bust the door down, watching as people in the nearby rooms pull back curtains and peek out of their own doors to see what’s with all of the commotion.

“Stupid fucking piece of shit door. Fucking open! Goddamnit,” Jonny growls.

More people are looking.

One person has a cell phone up to their ear as they stare out of the window.

“Jonny,” Patrick says.

Jonny keeps kicking.

“Jonny! Let’s go.”

“We can’t leave all of our stuff.”

“We have to,” Patrick says, reaching out for Jonny’s arm to make him settle, to make him stop.

“Where do we go?” Jonny asks, chest heaving, frenzied. 

“I don’t know,” Patrick says, because he doesn’t. “Away from here.”

They throw what remains of their belongings in the backseat and they leave.

*

A week comes and goes. Most of it is spent in the back of Andree’s car or on the beach. They use public restrooms to fill empty water bottles and freshen up, brush their teeth, wash their hair. Patrick’s clothes are beginning to smell. During the day they shoplift what they can to get by, a bag of chips, a clean pair of socks, Gatorade, a sandwich. They aren’t always successful. Patrick wishes the hunger was the only thing they had to worry about.

On a Thursday morning, he finds Jonny bent over the side of the car puking, his eyes glassy and skin clammy.

“My head,” Jonny tells him. Once the nausea has appeared to pass, he climbs miserably back inside the car and drinks half a bottle of water, pops five Tylenol in his mouth. He’s been swallowing them like candy for the last several days.

“Hey, maybe take it easy with those?” Patrick says, easing Jonny to stretch out as much as possible in the backseat, his head in Patrick’s lap.

“It’s fine,” Jonny mumbles weakly. His voice is so soft it makes Patrick want to curl around him and hold on tight.

“Do we need to find you something stronger?”

“I said it’s fine. Don’t worry about it,” Jonny says, damp forehead resting against Patrick’s stomach.

Patrick brushes light fingers through his hair until Jonny’s breathing evens out. He doesn’t sleep much that night, but Jonny does, more than he has in the previous days. The worst of it might have already passed; Jonny doesn’t say even when Patrick asks, that pinched look still spread over his face.

*

A dirty shirt hits Patrick in the face, startling him into waking. The shirt is Jonny’s and it smells like bitter sweat stains and is warm to the touch, like Jonny just took it off.

“Feeling better?” Patrick asks, throat dry and voice scratchy.

Jonny shrugs. “I’m hungry. Get dressed and let’s go get some food.”

Patrick groans, shifting in the passenger seat. No matter how many positions he’s tried to curl his body into in the car he always wakes up achy and stiff, imagines it must be worse for Jonny, who is all around bigger and taller. He never complains, not with words, not even when they try to fit together uncomfortably in the back seat. Still, Patrick can tell he’s in a mood by the dark circles under his eyes, the deep lines of his furrowed brow. They’ve been sleeping in their underwear in the car, unable to run the air conditioner and too hot to be clothed. He takes the shirt Jonny flung at him and, uncaring, slips it over his head, looking around for a pair of shorts somewhere near his feet

“I want pancakes and strawberries,” Patrick yawns.

“Not sure they have pancakes at 7-Eleven, but I’ll see what I can do,” Jonny says.

They drive ten miles or so away from the beach, far enough they aren’t hitting any stores or gas stations they’ve made appearances in recently.

There’s one car pulling out onto the street as they pull in and park at the side of the building, no one else around outside. There’s a clanging sound under the hood, louder today than yesterday. Jonny wasn’t feeling well enough to sit up, let alone drive, so Patrick took to the wheel and accidentally ran into a stop sign, scraped the passenger side against another parked car, denting it in at an awkward angle. It doesn’t want to shut all the way now, is easy to open, difficult to close.

“Make sure you lock it,” Jonny says, as they’re climbing out.

“I will.”

“I mean it.”

He’s giving Patrick this look like he knows Patrick won’t, and Patrick tries to lock it and push it closed from the outside, but the lock doesn’t want to click over. Jonny uses the key fob and walks inside the 7-Eleven, Patrick still standing by the door and trying to get it to shut. It won’t.

He manually unlocks the door and slams it closed, done screwing with it, follows Jonny inside.

They each head to the back, their backpacks on and unzipped so they can slip food inside as discreetly as possible. _Bad Moon Rising_ by CCR is playing on the radio at the front and Patrick hums along as he shoves a pack of peanuts inside his pocket, thinking of the junkyard, of him and Jonny spread out on that old GT, listening to 70s rock music, and talking about nothing at all.

A hand touches the back of his neck and Patrick turns to see Jonny handing him over a Strawberry Yoo-hoo. It’s not pancakes, but Patrick takes it with a smile, curling the bottle against his chest.

Jonny’s hand, still cupped around the nape of Patrick’s neck, begins to tug him in. Patrick goes, for a moment, then stops, the image of Alligator T-shirt shoving his fist into Jonny’s rib cage flashing before his eyes. He pulls away and steps back.

“Okay,”Jonny says, wounded and frowning. He walks down an aisle in the opposite direction.

Patrick almost goes after him, wants to explain, but now is neither the time nor the place, Patrick’s bag of stolen goods heavy on his shoulders. He grabs a bag of pretzels, some sour cherries for Jonny, a new bottle of Excedrin. Spinning around, he goes in search of cinnamon rolls when he nearly crashes into someone. Someone with a camo tank top on and a green mullet.

Time slows for several beats as recognition hits and Patrick assesses what he should do.

Jonny’s nowhere in sight.

Green Mullet smiles, his lips curling up around crooked, discolored teeth. His hooded eyes flick to the side as he moves close and Patrick reaches for the knife in his pocket on instinct.

He glances down, just for a second, just to catch his breath and when he looks up again Green Mullet is gone. Patrick jerks his head around, searching, unsettled. He takes several shallow breaths, unable to calm the running, racing thrum of his pulse.

“Jonny?”

“Yeah?” Jonny says.

Patrick follows the sound of his voice, comforted as he turns the corner of an aisle and sees him standing there, staring at different types of trail mix.

“We should go,” Patrick says. It feels like they’ve been saying that to each other a lot lately.

“I want to grab some more water and then we can,” he says, pulling two bags of trail mix off silver hooks and shoving them into the pocket of his cargo shorts.

“I saw the guy from the other day. The one with the mullet. He’s in here.”

Jonny’s eyes flash.

In the distance Patrick can hear a familiar clanging and clicking of an engine rattling under a hood. Too familiar. 

“Oh fuck. Oh _shit_ ,” he spits, breaking into a run, dashing to the front of the store.

As he bursts out of the door, he can see Green Mullet inside the cabin of Andree’s car, pulling out of the parking lot and onto the road, wheels squealing as he speeds away.

Away.

And gone.

Jonny slams out of the door behind him, too late to see their car, their shelter, everything they had left disappear.

There’s nothing left in the parking lot but Patrick, Jonny, and girl with blue hair leaning against the front of the building. Patrick’s standing in place, staring down the road as Jonny frantically looks around, head whipping back and forth like that will help him suddenly discover the location of their stolen vehicle.

He turns to the girl, eyes too wide and a little frightening.

“Did you see a guy come out here and get into a white Toyota Corolla?”

“Yeah,” she says. That’s all, just ‘yeah’.

Jonny stares at her, unblinking. “Did he have a mullet? A green one?”

“Sure did,” Blue Hair says, scratching at her bare elbow. “Which is unfortunate because lime green is a horrible choice for hair color, honestly.”

“He stole our car.”

“Was it your car?” she asks.

“Yes,” Jonny says, scowling.

“Oh, well, he totally stole your car then.”

“Fuck. MOTHER OF FUCK!” Jonny shouts. He takes his backpack from around his shoulders and slams it onto the ground, throwing it like he’s slicing an axe through a log of wood. He kicks at a nearby trash can, stalks back and forth looking for something to destroy, a need to crush anything he can under his foot.

A kid on a bike passes him by and Jonny almost reaches out, his face flaming red.

“Whoa,” Blue Hair says, pushing off the side of the building and approaching Jonny cautiously. “Hey, my man, deeps breaths, okay. We don't want you to pass out here.”

“Everything is fucked.”

“It’s just a car,” she says, placating.

“It’s not just a car! It’s all we….Patrick, did you lock your door?”

Patrick doesn’t move, feet glued to the pavement like he’s stuck in quicksand and sinking. “I…”

Jonny’s in front of him in an instant, inches away, hovering. “I told you to lock it like fifteen fucking times! Why wouldn’t you fucking lock it?!”

“It was jammed. I didn’t think it’d matter for only a few minutes.”

“Yeah, and look what fucking happened! Now we have nothing because you couldn’t take ten fucking seconds to make sure it was locked!”

He’s looming, so close their mouths could touch. Except Jonny’s growling and Patrick can’t catch his breath.

“Jonny, get out of my face,” Patrick says, deadly serious. “Right now.” His voice trembles.

The world stops moving for one second, then two, and three, and when it begins again, Jonny’s expression is cracked open and horrified. He stumbles back and away, like he doesn’t trust himself to be near, shocked at losing himself, at the anger that’s now receding. He walks far enough away Patrick couldn’t reach out and touch him even if he wanted.

He keeps walking until he’s at the side of the building, aimless, nowhere to go.

Patrick slumps down on the curb in front of the 7-Eleven, fits his arms around his bare knees.

The money is gone. The car is gone. Gone. He digs his fingers into his knees until it hurts.

Blue Hair takes a seat beside him, picks at the chipping nail polish on her left thumb. “Wow. Y’all are intense. Are you guys together? I’m definitely getting that vibe.”

Patrick looks at her, but doesn’t answer. He stares off into the distance, numb, tired.

“Strong but silent type. I can dig it. I’m Blake,” she says. She has black mixed in with the blue in her hair, dark makeup around her eyes, holes in her sneakers and her white shirt.

“Patrick,” he offers.

She grins, amused. “And who’s your boyfriend over there? Mr. Grumpy?”

“Jonathan.”

He doesn’t know why he’s telling her this.

“Fitting,” she nods. “You know you guys can all the cops, right? And they’ll help you with your car.”

“We can’t call the cops.”

“Why not? Is it stolen?”

Patrick says nothing.

“It is, isn’t it?”

“Why do you care?”

“I don’t,” she says, easy, unbothered. “But I am curious. You and Handsome McGrouchy over there are entertaining as shit.”

Patrick’s eyes narrow. “He kind of has a temper.”

“No, kidding,” she laughs. “Where are you guys from?”

Patrick weighs his options and decides to lie. “Here.”

“No, you’re not.”

“How would you know?”

At this she averts her gaze.”I’ve been around. And you guys don’t sound Southern. If I had to guess, I’d say New York? Or maybe New Jersey?”

“You guessed that? From the five things I said to you just now?” Patrick asks, suspicious.

She grins again. Her lips are black too, her teeth straight. “Okay, I might’ve also seen the license plate on your car, but you definitely have an accent.”

“I guess,” Patrick says. He wants to go, but he remembers then, having forgotten for a brief moment, that they have nowhere to go, no car to get them there even if they did. Everything is gone. And it’s all Patrick’s fault. He presses his face into his hands, tries to stop himself from screaming. “Fuuuck,” he groans. 

“Come on, let’s go,” Jonny says, gentle.

Patrick didn’t hear him approach. He looks up and sees Jonny’s hands shoved into his pockets, his expression sullen and withdrawn.

“Go where?” Patrick asks.

“You need to eat.” 

“I’m fine.”

Jonny sighs. He looks pained. “Patrick, we haven’t had real food in two days. We gotta eat. We’ll figure out what to do after.”

He doesn’t want to argue, doesn’t have the energy for it, so he stands and follows Jonny in whatever direction he wants to go. They’ve been walking for several blocks when they both notice Blake is keeping pace with them.

“Who’s this?” Jonny asks, confused.

“Blake,” she says, shooting Jonny two finger guns. “Nice to meet ya. Me and Angelface already got acquainted while you were busy stewing. So where are we eating breakfast?”

*

The IHOP they end up at is blessedly air conditioned and busy enough no one questions why three dirty teenagers order enough food to feed a small army. _It’s on me_ , Blake tells them when Patrick only orders a muffin, and he’s hungry enough to accept her offer, knows Jonny must be just as hungry too by the way he orders two stacks of pancakes, bacon, sausage, eggs, orange juice and toast.

“You guys gonna head back up North?” Blake asks after their food arrives.

Jonny’s already inhaled half his bacon.

“No,” Patrick says around a bite of buttery pancakes. “I can’t.”

He doesn’t answer for Jonny, even if he wants too.

“It’s not really an option,” Jonny says. Which isn’t exactly true, not for both of them. It’s just not an option for Patrick. He keeps that thought to himself.

Blake nods, taking this in. She pours syrup over her waffles. “So you’ll stick around here?”

“I don’t know,” Patrick says.

They eat in silence for awhile after that, the sounds of silverware against plates and people chattering in the background filling the air. Jonny inhales his breakfast like he hasn’t had food in months, and Patrick finds he’s taking larger bites as well, his stomach full to bursting, but he’s not ready to quit eating, not when everything tastes so good and he hasn’t had warm food in almost two weeks. 

“Where will you guys go?” Blake says, finishing off the rest of her coffee.

Jonny flicks a measured look at her. “Do you always ask this many questions?”

“Are you always this crabby?” she throws back at him.

“Yes,” Patrick says, and they both laugh when Jonny looks skyward.

It breaks the tension, briefly, and it’s a relief to see Jonny’s small smile, the way he sighs in exaggeration and rolls his eyes, playing along.

They finish off their food, Patrick emptying his plate and almost considering licking it clean before the waitress comes to take their dishes away, leaving the check behind. Blake pulls out a marker from her purse and writes an address on the back of the bill.

“Look, I know this place you can stay if you’re in a bind. It ain’t the Hilton or anything, but it’s better than getting picked up by the cops for trying to sleep on the beach. This is my number too, but sometimes my phone dies if I can’t get somewhere to charge it, so don’t rely on that.”

Patrick picks up the bill and looks the address over. 

“Why are you helping us?” Jonny asks.

Blake scoots her way out of the booth they’re sitting in and stands, she pinches the apple of Jonny’s cheek. “Because I like your face, Doll. Now you two sit tight. I gotta run to the bathroom.”

“Should we check this place out?” Patrick says once she’s out of earshot. 

Jonny hums, considering. “She could be full of shit.”

“She could,” Patrick nods.

“But we don’t have a lot of other options right now.”

Patrick nods again.

The tightness around Jonny’s mouth reappears, his gaze focused on the empty table as if in thought. Minutes go by, five then ten, and Blake doesn’t return.

“What the hell is taking her so long?”

“I think she bounced,” Jonny says; he seems unsurprised. “Dine and ditch.”

Patrick drops his head into his arms. Tired. He’s so very tired. “We don’t have the money to cover this.”

Jonny peers around, subtle, but Patrick’s watched him enough to know he’s casing the place, cataloguing where everything and everyone is located.

“I know. Have to make a run for it. Put your bag on.”

Patrick does, slipping both straps over each shoulder, hands gripped around them tight. He stuffs the bill with the address on it in his pocket. “Now?”

“In a minute. Wait until the manager slips into the kitchen.”

It’s a long minute. Patrick counts under his breath to keep himself from vibrating out of his seat. The manager is greeting a customer with a complaint, it goes on for a while as they argue. 

“Let’s go now,” Patrick whispers.

“Not yet,” Jonny says, and Patrick stays put, rigid and unable to move regardless as he’s blocked in the booth by Jonny’s body.

Their waitress walks past and Patrick’s stomach drops; even after everything he’s stolen, even after everything they’ve lost, the sick thrill and dread that fills him and twists his insides is a horrible, terrible, beautiful kind of rush. He loves it as much as he hates it. And when Jonny takes his hand as they race through tables and chairs, sprinting from the door and bolting down the street, Patrick laughs. It sounds hysterical and high-pitched to his own ears. He chokes on the wind, his eyes blurring, his feet thumping against concrete. 

*

The day passes in a fog as they wander around the beach and boardwalk. The sun hides behind the clouds later in the afternoon, clearing out the beach enough they can sleep on the sand, heads pillowed on their backpacks. The heat zaps most of their energy, but they snack on the drinks and assorted food they snatched earlier from the 7-Eleven.

Patrick doesn’t bring up what they’re going to do about the little problem of where to stay that night, and neither does Jonny. They don’t talk about the future, even if that future is only hours away. The slip of paper in his pocket, the one Blake wrote an address on sits under Patrick’s fingertips, a silent curiosity.

As the sky darkens, he pulls it out and hands it to Jonny.

“We can’t trust her,” Jonny says.

“I don’t,” Patrick says. “But let’s check it out anyway.”

Jonny’s lips thin, his expression uncertain even as he agrees.

The address leads them to an abandoned warehouse at the end of a block of other scarcely populated and decrepit buildings. Finding an entrance is tricky. The street lights are busted or flickering, the area around them dark, only lit by the night sky. They find a hole big enough in the chain link fence to squeeze through and trudge across the wild grass and overgrown weeds, to find an entrance that isn’t locked, at the back of the building. There’s a noise coming from deeper within, voices and the sounds of steps. Jonny slides in front of Patrick, no weapons in his hands, but determined to shield him regardless. Patrick sighs and gets out his knife, flipping the blade open. 

They walk up to the second floor, the voices getting louder now. Blake is standing around a metal trash can, a fire crackling inside and alighting the room full of ten or fifteen people. Some notice when Jonny and Patrick walk in; others don’t, paying them no mind.

Blake smiles when she recognizes them, hopping up from her seat of stacked newspapers and bounding over to them.

“You’re here!” she says cheerfully.

“Yeah,” Patrick says. “And thanks for fucking leaving us earlier.”

She laughs like Patrick is being particularly hilarious, smacks him on the arm.

“It’s funny you think I really had enough money to pay for your food. I’m glad you came.”

“Is this a joke too?” Jonny says, solemn. “You about to jump us in the dark? Because I’ll tell you upfront I’ve got ten bucks, some snack food, and that’s it.”

Blake guides them a few steps from the group, her voice hushed when she speaks. “People around here get knifed for ten bucks, for less. So I’d shut up about that if I were you. But no, I don’t want your money.”

“Then why give us this address?” Patrick asks, his own knife still in his hand.

Blake eyes it and him. She tugs on her blue hair, now in a braid lying over her left shoulder. “When I was on the streets for the first time, on my own, nobody watched out for me. I spent a lot of nights sleeping under park benches and in back alleys, running from creeps who tried to take from me. You guys looked like you could use a friend, to be honest. So here I am.”

Jonny isn’t convinced. “A _friend_. That easy, huh? No strings attached.”

“There are always strings, Handsome. But the way I see it, if you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours and it’ll be mutually beneficial.”

Patrick flips his knife closed, shoves it back in his pocket. “What do you want?”

Blake tugs at the end of her braid, fingers sliding over the ends of her hair, a nervous tick. “I need to get out here. Soon.”

“How soon?”

“Within the next few days.”

“Why?” Patrick asks

“That’s not relevant,” Blake says. “If I can tag along with you out of here, somewhere north, west, I don’t care, anywhere that’s not here, that’s best.”

Jonny runs a hand over his face, rubbing at his eyes. 

“Why do you need us to do that?” Patrick asks “Can’t you just go on your own?”

“Not really. Someone’s following me,” she says.

“Who?” Jonny presses.

Blake shakes her head, refuses to budge. “Like I said, it’s not important right now. I just need you guys to watch my back until we’re out of here and I’ll help you get where you’re going. Does that work?”

In a sea of no options, it’s a tiny lighthouse in the distance. Maybe it’s a cruise ship in disguise, ready to run them over and let the sharks feast on their remains. It’s better than the nothing that they currently have right now. They both know it, communicating this to each other in a look that passes between them when Jonny turns to him.

He turns back to Blake and says, “Yeah, okay.”

“Marvelous!” she says, beaming. “Now c’mon. I’ll show you boys where you can sleep.”

*

Where they end up sleeping is on an torn orange sleeping bag in the corner of what used to be someone’s office. There’s still a metal desk and a filing cabinet hanging out in the middle of the room, one drawer missing and the others half open and empty. It’s very dark without the fire to keep the space lit up, the shadows from the windows casting sharp figures over the walls and floor. Blake’s on the other side of the room, on a pile of ratty blankets, back against the wall and head resting on one her bags, the other hugged to her chest.

Patrick’s stretched out on his back, Jonny beside him, neither of them touching. Jonny’s been quiet all day, quieter than usual, distant. It’s weird to not be touching him somehow, their bodies close, but too far, on the precipice of sleep.

Jonny clears his throat. “About earlier…”

“It’s okay,” Patrick says, even if the thought of Jonny’s furious face is still imprinted on the back of his eyelids. 

Jonny huffs out a breath. “It’s not. It’s not. I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.”

“I should’ve locked the door. I lost us the car.”

“Fuck the car. We’ll get a new car.”

“How?”

“I’ll boost one if I have to,” Jonny says, sounding determined. “I’ve done it before. I used to do it all the time with the cars around my neighborhood. Mostly before you came around. On nights I was bored, I’d sneak out and start up the ones parked on the street, drive them around a bit and bring them back. We just have to be smart about it. And we can’t keep any one car for too long.”

Patrick can’t believe what he’s hearing. Jonny would steal another car for him, risk getting caught for him, when he doesn’t have to, when he could leave this dank, dusty warehouse anytime and go home. Patrick tries to understand why, but he can’t make sense of it, of Jonny, of anything.

“Why are you doing this?” he asks, the words falling out of him without his consent.

Jonny turns his head, meets his eyes. “Doing what?”

“Staying here with me when you can go home.”

Jonny’s face falls. “You know why.”

“No, I don't. Your family is good. They're not like mine. They’re...nice.”

“I mean, yeah. Sure. They're alright.”

_Alright. They’re...alright._ Patrick stops himself from laughing.

“What then?” he asks, annoyed.

“It's not about them,” Jonny says, tongue clicking. He swallows hard. “It’s....Look. It's better if I’m not there. I just screw shit up. I'm fucked. I’ll always be fucked.”

“What? No? What do you mean?”

“I used to play, you know. Hockey. All the time.”

“I could tell,” Patrick says. “I saw your trophies.”

“Since I was five years old, I'd put everything into hockey, everything. I was so sure it would pay off. I barely let myself focus on anything else. We moved to the states when I was thirteen and my new coach suggested I try playing defense since I was one of the bigger kids. I was always good at taking hits, protecting the puck, but after switching from offense to defense I could dish ‘em out too, give back as good as I got. And the harder I played, the harder I hit, the more attention I got from other teams, the more ice time I got. Some months I was playing five, six games a week. College recruiters were calling my parents when I was fifteen. I was gonna go to the NHL, I fucking knew it.”

Patrick’s silent for a long moment. “And then?”

Jonny sighs. “And then I got my first concussion. But it was fine. I was fine. I kept playing. I got another one. A month later two more almost back to back. I stopped playing for a while, to recover. But the longer I stayed out, my teams suffered, the calls stopped coming, my coaches were restless, so I started again. My parents didn't want me to, but I knew it was going to be okay. I'd get past it. I'd be great. Then I got hit so hard I blacked out during a game. Had to go to the ER. The doctors diagnosed me as a high risk for CTE, said if I chose to continue playing I could potentially scramble my brain into nothing. But fuck them, right? I was _fine_.”

“Were you?”

“That's when the migraines and vertigo started so it didn't matter anyway. I was done. It was the end.”

“Maybe you could--,” Patrick starts, only to be cut off.

“No,” Jonny says, voice cold, matter-of-fact. “Whatever you're thinking, I've thought it, I've tried it. It's useless. I'm useless now.”

“Jonny,” Patrick says, rolling closer to him, pressing their bodies together. He cups Jonny’s jaw before tilting his head down.

“It's the truth,” Jonny mumbles, so sure he’ll never be better, never be worth more than this.

Patrick’s entire chest aches, tiny needles pricking at his heart.

“Stop,” he tells him gently. “Just. Just kiss me. Please.”

Their mouths meet in the middle, lips brushing, tongues licking out and inside, tasting. They kiss until they pass out, foreheads pressed together.

*

“I have this friend in Minnesota,” Jonny says the next day. “An old hockey teammate. He might let us stay with him for a while.”

“Minnesota,” Patrick says. “Really?”

“ _Really?_ ” Blake echoes.

Jonny doesn’t smile, not even a little.

“I guess that works. If we have to,” Patrick teases.

“It’s not Cali, but it’ll do,” Blake says, sighing dramatically.

Jonny flips them both off.

*

They bum a ride from a friend of Blake’s to the nearest truck depot. A truck depot, Blake explains, is better for trying to catch a long distance ride than hitchhiking.

“You just have to be willing to expect quid pro quo,” she says.

Patrick shudders considering what that might mean, what the price might be. His fears are confirmed when Blake flags down several truckers in her low-cut shirt and the first one going north-west says, “I can take you as far as Missouri. What can you do for me?”

He’s greasy haired and stout, his face full of pock-marks, his gaze undiscerning as he looks at all three of them.

Blake walks closer to the driver’s side window, steps up on the foot lift of the semi-truck.

“I’ll give you a handie if you stop staring at my friends. Okay, pal? You’re freaking them out.”

“I’m not freaked out,” Patrick whispers.

The trucker squints. “A blow job.”

“A handie and I’ll let you touch my tits,” Blake says, blank-faced and like she’s negotiating what to have for dinner.

“Fine, but no bathroom breaks. I’ve got a schedule to keep, ya hear?”

“You got it, Bubba. Boys, give me two minutes.”

The trucker, whose name Patrick doesn’t ever care to learn, grunts, offended by this insult to his manhood, and Blake swings around the front of the semi-truck, climbing inside through the passenger door. Patrick wants to keep an eye out, to make sure this dirty fuck doesn’t try anything funny, but he doesn’t want to see.

“Should we give them more privacy?” he asks, unsure, sick suddenly rising at the back of his mouth.

“Stay,” the trucker says. “I like an audience.”

When he starts to moan, Patrick stumbles backwards into Jonny’s chest, Jonny’s arms circling around his waist.

“When we get in there, sit by the door.”

“Jonny.”

“Please?” he says, softly. “Just sit by the door. For me?”

“For you,” Patrick agrees.

There’s a gurgling sound when he comes and it curdles into Patrick’s stomach, makes it easy for him to let Jonny get in that truck first, to let him provide Patrick that barrier.

“Are you okay?” Patrick asks Blake once they’re all squeezed inside the truck’s cabin.

Blake shrugs, eyes dull as she finishes wiping her hand clean, turns on the radio. “I’m good, Angelface. No worries for me.”

Jonny folds his arm around her shoulders, tucks her close, his right hand fitted over Patrick’s left knee. They both lean into him as the semi roars to life, as it takes them north and on.


	6. Chapter 6

It’s quiet for awhile, the low-level sounds of the radio playing classic country songs as they drive for hours. Patrick tries to keep track of where they are, as they move from I-95 to I-40, passing through North Carolina and into Tennessee. He tries to keep track, but the hum of the engine and Jonny’s shoulder to rest his head on lulls him into a hazy daydream sleep.

He floats, thinking, imagining, pretending they’re somewhere else, a better place. He can hear Jonny’s stomach rumble and growl, but he says nothing. He rubs his thumb over Patrick’s knuckles, forefinger, middle, ring, pinky. Again. Slower. Again.

Patrick’s in a trance watching him do it, listening to Blake make idle chit-chat, playing interested, acting coy.

Patrick wishes he’d texted Erica before his phone died. But then he wishes for many things that will never be.

*

They stop in Nashville for gas. Leo, the driver, tells them they have as long as it takes him to fill the tank and take a piss to stretch their legs and be back or he’s taking off.

“Want to steal his truck while he’s in the bathroom?” Jonny asks.

Patrick huffs out a small laugh. “You know how to drive a semi?”

Jonny shrugs. “No, but how hard could it be?”

“Maybe we should stick to boosting cars. For now.”

“I guess.”

Patrick wonders if Jonny might actually try it, given the right opportunity. He doesn’t put it past Jonny, doesn’t put much past Jonny ever.

“Hey,” Blake says. “Who wants to grab me an Arizona tea while I get some Sno Balls.”

Patrick makes a face. “Gross. I’ll do it.

“What, you don’t like pink balls in your mouth?” Blake asks, blinking innocently.

Jonny snorts, curling his arm around her neck and dragging her in for a noogie while she yelps about her hair.

“Hurry the fuck up!” Leo yells.

They rush inside.

*

The hours drag by as they pass through Tennessee, then Kentucky, and into Missouri. The sky has grown pitch black around them. Patrick expects Leo to pull over at some point for sleep, hopes for it, his bladder full to bursting and his body cramped up from sitting too long. 

The truck never slows or stops and eventually the night fades into a foggy light blue morning. Jonny’s asleep next to him, Blake slumped against Jonny’s other side. Patrick’s been wide awake since three, watching road signs and clenching his thighs.

There’s a McDonald’s attached to a twenty-four hour gas station, a pit stop rest area for truckers. Leo pulls into it and has barely hit park before Patrick’s jumping out and running towards the McDonald’s bathroom. He pisses for approximately five years and almost slumps against the stall door in relief, his legs like floppy shoe strings struggling to hold him up. When he returns to the truck Jonny and Blake are still zonked out in the cab of the truck, Leo sitting at the steering wheel and messing with lighting a cigarette. Patrick wants to ask if he can bum one off of him, but he doesn’t.

Once it’s lit and Leo’s taken a long pull, he glances over at Patrick as he exhales, a smoke cloud blurring his bloated, scarred face.

“You hungry?” Leo asks.

Patrick thinks of greasy cheeseburgers and fries, the candy bar he had hours ago a distant memory. “Yeah,” he says, before he thinks better of it.

An eerie quiet fills the space between them. “Want to earn some extra cash? Just you and me?” 

Patrick’s hand tightens around Jonny’s thigh, and Jonny jerks awake beside him, disoriented. He smacks his lips, blinking his eyes at Patrick and out of the windshield.

“What? Where are we? What time is it?”

“St. Louis, I think,” says Patrick, low. “Five AM.”

Jonny squints, taking Patrick in and his stiff posture, his hunched in shoulders. “Let’s go. Blake, wake up.”

He shakes her shoulder gently twice. 

“Huh?” she says.

“We’re here. Time to go,” Jonny reaches over to pop the door open on Patrick’s side.

“Get on,” Leo coughs. “And think about takin’ a shower. You kids smell like the wrong end of a trash can.”

Blake sits up in her seat, stretches her arms out. “Well, Bubba, you would know.”

“What the fuck are you implyin’?”

“That you stink worse. Obviously.”

“You little cunt.” Leo’s eyes narrow as he moves forward, like he’s thinking about lashing out, maybe hitting Blake.

Patrick pushes the door farther open, grabs his bag, and hops down out of the cab of the truck, pulling Jonny with him. Jonny in turn drags Blake along and then they’re out and walking away, into the morning and the rising sun.

*

They walk for two days, and only make it as far as Bowling Green, Missouri. Hitching rides is difficult. Most people don’t want to drive them more than a hour out of their way, although one lonely man takes them as far Mt. Pleasant, Iowa, and gives them fifty bucks as they climb out of his minivan.

“Take care of each other,” he says, like he knows where they’ve been and what they’ve been through.

It reminds Patrick that there are still good people, even if they only exist in the cracks between one minute and the next; flawed, smeared, they manage to break through and shine. It’s not nothing.

*

It’s warm enough, even this far north, to sleep outside now. Mid-June and the air is a cool, damp breeze in the mornings. They take what they need from gas stations and sleep on park benches, using public bathrooms to wipe away the grime of the day.

Patrick misses showers and clean socks more than he misses the thought of a warm meal or even a soft bed. His teeth feel moss-fuzzy from lack of brushing, his hair greasy and matted down to his head without shampoo. There’s so much dirt under his fingernails it’s as if he’s been digging his way across soil. Jonny is quiet, doesn’t complain while Blake tries to stay upbeat, showing them ways to fit more food in their pockets, which food makes them feel fuller longer, which drugstore ointments are good for blisters or which soap lasts the longest.

They take to sleeping huddled together in a little pack. Jonny often in the middle with Patrick on one side and Blake on the other. She takes up space in the crook of Jonny’s arm so easily it makes Patrick’s insides cramp, his jaw tense until he presses his face to Jonny’s neck and drags his lips over Jonny’s skin. They haven’t touched each other with purpose since they left Florida. There hasn’t been time or opportunity and Patrick knows there are more important things to be worried about. He knows they just need to get to Jonny’s friend’s place and then they can maybe relax, at least for awhile. He knows this, but he can’t let go of the nagging worry, of all his worries building on top of each other; it grows everyday.

In Waterloo they come across a rail yard late at night, lit up by twenty foot lamp posts and surrounded by miles of chain link fence. There’s a group of kids, not much older than them, climbing the fence, one person’s jacket covering the barbed wire at the top of the fence so the others can easily slip over.

“What are they doing?” Patrick asks, trying to watch where the group of them have now disappeared behind a train car.

“Looking for an open boxcar to sleep in, most likely,” Blake says. “Or maybe looking for a ride.”

“A ride,” Jonny says, brow furrowed. “That’s a good idea. We can ask them if they know if any of the trains in the lot are headed toward Minnesota. Then maybe we can stop walking for a bit. C’mon, let’s go.”

Jonny doesn’t wait for them to agree, simply marches ahead, scaling the fence and only stopping at the top to help them both over. Once the three of them are on the ground again, he’s heading in the direction they all saw the group of kids go, barely waiting for Patrick and Blake to keep up, as if now that he has a plan he’s unwilling to let anyone stop him from achieving it.

Patrick just hopes none of them are armed or hostile. He’s too tired and hungry to be worth much in a fight at the moment. He grabs at the knife in his pocket anyway.

Blake steps in front of Jonny once they get close enough to hear voices inside of a boxcar. “You should wait here and I’ll talk to them first.”

Jonny frowns. “Why? What the fuck do they care what we’re doing?”

“They’re probably train hoppers,” she says. “Probably homeless. And they don’t take well to outsiders from my experience. They need to know we’re not just rich kids out for a joy ride or we’ll end up fucked over and on the wrong train. So just. Just stay and I’ll be back.”

She backs up slowly like she’s worried Jonny will rush past her heedless of her warnings. 

Jonny waves her off. “Fine, go,” he sighs. “I’m thirsty.”

“I have some water in my bag,” Patrick slings his backpack off one shoulder to unzip it and retrieve one of his half empty bottles.

“No, save that for you.”

“Don’t be an idiot. Have some or you’ll get dehydrated.”

“Or you will if I drink it all,” Jonny says, placing his hand over Patrick’s on the water bottle to push it back toward him. They end up in a stupid reverse tug of war, pulling each other closer each time. Their chests are touching, noses brushing.

“You’re so fucking stubborn,” Patrick says, groaning and gives up, for now.

In the distance Blake’s voice rings out, calling for them, leading them to the train car they eventually climb into, empty of materials, but full colorful graffiti and a few other people who look, if possible, even dirtier and more strung out than them. They wait for hours for the train to begin to move, the night bleeding into day. He’s asleep when the clinking and clanking of metal on the tracks and the jolt of the train car awakens him enough that he can peek out the door of the car and see the rail yard slowly, slowly dissolving into new scenery behind them.

*

They ride the train for a long time, the wind rushing inside and outside of the car, the wheels clunking along as Blake asks them about their favorite songs and paints Jonny’s fingernails electric blue from a bottle that’s almost empty.

She’s got a tube of mascara out and is combing the wand through Jonny’s eyelashes as he attempts not to fidget. “A masterpiece,” she says, when she’s finished. “Let me take a picture.”

“No way,” Jonny says. “Forget it.”

Blake frowns at him, expression exaggerated and pouty. Patrick catches Jonny smiling at him from the edge of his vision. His eyes look big with his eyelashes so long and full and Patrick gets caught up in how pretty he is, how he’d like to kiss him.

“PK, get over here and check out your man. I made him look good.”

Patrick swallows. “I see. It’s, uh, very nice.”

“You think so?” Jonny asks.

“You’re gorgeous, you know that,” Patrick says, half muffled by the nail he’s chewing on. He can’t quite look at Jonny as he says it. Even when Jonny tilts his chin up and curls a hand around Patrick’s face.

“I like it when you say it anyway,” Jonny whispers.

Blake breaks them up by tugging Patrick closer to her, her bag half open by her side and beauty products spilling out.

“Make out later. Makeup now,” she says, sitting in front of Patrick. “I’ve got some Marc Jacobs Red Diamond lip gloss with your name on it.”

There’s a couple of other people in the train car with them, a guy named Gerard that’s old enough to be Patrick’s grandpa, skinny and with a beard that’s full of gray and dusty knots. Then two girls and a guy with dreadlocks in their hair and dirt on their faces. None of them talk much, but when they do it’s mostly to each other. A guy with ripped jeans and a buzzed head jumped off a few hours back, as the train was still moving. Patrick’s not sure if the guy landed alright, but he hopes he got there in one piece.

Patrick points at himself. “Mine?”

“Yours.”

“No. Nope. I used to do have to do this with my sisters so, you know, I’m good. I’m all good.”

“The longer you resist, the more painful it’ll be,” Jonny says.

Blake nods and proceeds to needle at him for another twenty minutes, or possibly two hours, Patrick can’t tell the difference, until he finally gives in. She smothers him in a hug and tacky lip crap that cover his mouth as Jonny watches him, smirking, and a little flushed, probably thinking dirty thoughts.

*

It’s almost sunset by the time the train stops in Rochester, Minnesota. Jonny tells them they’re still hours from Minneapolis so they’ll have to find a place to sleep tonight, try to hitch a ride tomorrow. Gerard and the other kids stay in the train car, one of the girls briefly waving to them as they depart. Patrick wonders where they’re going, where they’ll end up, where he’ll end up after all of this, and if Jonny will still be with him. Will the people back on the train think of him once they’re gone like Patrick will think of them? Or are they just more faces to be forgotten in a sea of faces, of people they’ll come across who ultimately don’t matter? There’s no way to know the answer. There’s never any answers. But there is a deserted underpass they crawl up to and catch a few hours of sleep under, making their way back onto the road at the break of dawn.

They walk most of the day, without much food or water, Patrick’s feet aching and sore as the sun sets, the wind whipping around them. There’s blisters on four of his toes, and they rub against the top of his shoes with every step he takes. He doesn’t ask to stop because Jonny and Blake don’t either, the three of them trudging along until a pick up truck lets them ride in the back carriage long enough to get to Bloomington. 

He tried to nap on the drive up, but it was difficult to get comfortable when the truck kept shifting around, knocking them loose and into each other like bumper cars on a tiny racetrack. They get directions from the driver before he drops them off, walking into the Minneapolis morning dead on their feet. Patrick’s anticipating Jonny to take them to a house in the middle of some suburban neighborhood. He’s picturing minivans and kids playing in yards. What he’s not expecting is the college campus they find their way onto or the large brick building they come upon with a sign reading Sanford Hall.

There are students everywhere, backpacks hanging from their shoulders, phones in their hands, or earbuds stuck in their ears as they pass by. All of them look so clean, fresh clothes on their backs, shoes without holes or tears, no dirt under their fingernails. Even the grass seems greener here, lush, and freshly cut. The cars parked along the streets new, paint glossy and unmarred.

Patrick can feel the eyes of the students around them on him, telling him he doesn’t belong.

“What are we doing here, Jonny?” he asks, folding his arms over his chest. He turns away from an oncoming group of student athletes. Their bags full of football gear, talking loudly as they make their way around the building.

“My friend lives here. He goes to U of M. He’ll give us a place to stay for awhile.”

“Does he know we’re coming?” Patrick says.

Jonny presses his lips together. “No. I didn’t exactly get a chance to call him before my phone died. But it’s fine.”

Blake eyes him skeptically.

“He will. You guys don’t know him. We were tight when we played hockey together as kids. He’s got my back.” Jonny says this with such certainty that Patrick doesn’t argue with him. He’s worn to the bone, his eyelids so heavy he’s using his last bit of energy just keeping himself upright. When Blake takes a seat on the front steps of Sanford Hall, Patrick follows suit, slumping against her while they wait for Jonny’s friend to arrive.

They wait for for what feels like hours. 

Patrick loses track of time, falling in and out of wakefulness as people move past them, around them, sometimes through them. No one asks them to move, although they get their fair share of suspicious stares. And eventually someone from inside the building comes out to ask Jonny who he’s waiting for. 

“TJ,” Jonny says. “TJ Oshie.”

“Let me check if he’s around,” she says. “Hold on.”

Jonny paces while they wait some more, face solemn as he treads a path at the top of the stairs.

“Jon?” a voice says when the doors open.

He’s tall, with sandy brown hair and bright eyes, his smile wide when he sees Jonny standing there waiting for him.

They embrace like they haven’t seen each other for years, arms tight around each other’s shoulders and heads too close. It makes Patrick sit up straight immediately, all of his strings pulled tight.

“Hey, buddy. How’s it goin’?” Jonny says, when they break apart. He’s smiling too. Both of them grinning at the other. TJ pulls Jonny back into a close hug.

“Well, they look close,” Blake says under her breath.

“I guess,” Patrick mutters. He wants to look away.

“What the hell are you doing here?” TJ says. “Not that it isn’t good to see you, but it’s been like two years, man. You fell off the grid.”

Jonny nods. “I know. I had to quit.”

TJ’s face falls for a moment, he takes a step back, lets his arms drop away from Jonny’s body. “I heard. Sucks.”

“Yeah,” Jonny echoes, rolling his shoulders. “Anyway, I need to call in a favor.”

“What’s up?”

“Me and my friends need a place to stay for a few days. It’s a lot to ask, I know. But we don’t have anywhere else to go.”

At the word ‘friends’ TJ finally pulls his eyes away from Jonny’s face and glances around, his attention zeroing in on Patrick and Blake. He balks for an instant, taking in their ragged appearance, surveying Jonny again and noticing how unkempt he is as well. He looks between them once, then twice, confusion flashing clear through his evolving expressions.

“I have a lot of questions…”

“And I’ll answer all of them. I swear,” Jonny says. “Just let us crash with you for now. Please.” He fits his hands around TJ’s shoulder caps, squeezing lightly, his voice a little pleading. And Patrick suddenly hates that they’re here, that Jonny’s begging anyone for help, that he’s touching this guy with familiarity and and and hope.

He swallows back a dry lump in his throat.

“Who’s us?” TJ asks.

Jonny gestures to where Patrick and Blake are still sitting on the steps a few feet away. “My friends, Patrick and Blake.”

Blake pops up when she hears her name, every inch of exhaustion now hidden, her smile almost overly cheerful.

“Hiya!” she says, sticking out her hand for a quick shake. “Blake is me. Patrick is him.”

Patrick stands slower, shoves his hands in his pockets. “Patrick. Jonny’s _friend_ ,” he says, flickers his gaze towards Jonny.

Jonny blinks back at him, unreadable.

“Is there anyone else?” TJ laughs. “Someone hiding in the bushes I should know about?”

It takes a long moment for Jonny to turn away from Patrick, as if he’s caught in a net and doesn’t want to be let go. His smile returns as he smacks at TJ’s shoulder. “No, it’s just the three of us.”

TJ sighs. “It’ll be a tight fit. You’re lucky I have a fucking single.”

“So lucky,” Jonny says, pulling TJ under his arm.

“C’mon,” TJ calls, guiding them into the building. 

Reluctantly, Patrick goes.

*

The walls are white and sterile as they walk through the front of the building to get to the elevator. Students are studying or typing on their laptops, or napping. As they make it up to what appears to be TJ’s floor, the third floor, color begins to bleed in, fliers, stickers, message boards with drawings and notes written in blues and pinks and greens are everywhere. There’s music thumping inside one room, while high pitched laughter filters in from somewhere further down the hall. Nobody pays them much attention, except for a few cursory glances, one from a girl that’s standing around in Hello Kitty pajamas.

“You know,” TJ says, once he’s ushered them inside his room and shut the door. “I could get in a fuckton of trouble if my RA finds out about this. So just be chill and don’t, like, fuck up my room.”

He looks at Patrick as he finishes saying this and Patrick can feel his own face scrunch up irritation, his mouth curving down. Blake loops an arm around TJ’s shoulder and rubs at his arm.

“We won’t, sugar,” she says, smile full of charm. “Don’t you worry.”

TJ smiles back at her, maybe a little turned on despite himself. Blake is a beautiful girl, even under her ragged, dirty clothes and tired eyes. There’s a mystery and a danger to her, the kind that promises adventure and fun. Patrick can see the appeal.

“Where are the showers?” Jonny asks, dropping his backpack to the ground. He takes a heavy seat on TJ’s bed like he’s just unloaded a hundred pound weight off of his back.

TJ sits beside him, tugs Jonny’s dirty hair, pushes at his shoulder, ruffling him up a bit.

“Down the hall a bit to the left. God, you guys look rough. Where the fuck have you been?” He’s touching his fingertips together, like the filth from Jonny’s hair transferred to his hand. He wipes at his pants in an exaggerated fashion that’s supposed to be funny. Jonny laughs, pulls him down to the bed and elbows him in the ribs.

“Around. In Florida.”

“In Florida? I thought your dad got a job in New York?”

“He did, but I - we - had to leave for awhile.”

TJ eyes Patrick again. Not kindly. “Dude, what the fuck is going on?”

“Look, it’s hard to explain, but can you just believe me when I tell you we needed to get away?”

TJ sighs. “Well, I can only let you stay until the 17th. I know that’s only four days, but my final exam is on Friday and then the semester is over. I’m moving out to head back home on Sunday.” He almost sounds remorseful when he says this, although Patrick doesn’t know why. He’s seemed put out almost from the minute they arrived.

Patrick’s too busy being annoyed with TJ and his stupid surfer hair, his judgemental eyes, and nonchalant familiarity with Jonny that it takes him a second to really hear what TJ said.

_Four days._

Just four days. They came all the way here for this. Patrick feels whatever is left of his remaining energy drain away, and he sinks to the floor, a beanbag chair catching most of his weight. 

“ _Shit_ ,” says Jonny, blowing out a quick breath.

“I’m sorry, man.”

“No, it’s alright,” he says, placating. “Thanks for letting us crash while you can.”

TJ smiles. He looks like a dopey kid that’s happy his dad is proud of him even though he only won a participation award. “For sure. The cafeteria is in the basement, but you’ll need my pass to get food. There are vending machines in the common room though. I have class in an hour and then I need to hit the gym after that, so I might not be back until late. You guys good to keep yourselves busy?”

“Yeah, no worries.”

Patrick can feel himself drifting in and out. He hasn’t slept more than a few hours at a time here and there for days. His stomach is gurgling, panging with hunger, and he’s so dirty he’s ready to crawl out of his own skin, but this beanbag chair is the comfiest thing he’s rested on since they left the hotel in Myrtle Beach and he can’t quite seem to keep his eyes open. Blake curls into his side, her head pillowed on his arm like a cat that’s decided he’s exactly where she wants to lie.

TJ is moving around the room collecting some clothes and stuffing them in a bag, grabbing a pair of headphones, the expensive kind that he fits around his neck. Him and Jonny are talking at the door and Patrick can’t hear what they’re saying, probably nothing, but Patrick wants to drag Jonny down into their little group nap anyway, doesn’t like him being so far away.

He falls asleep before the door closes.

*

Jonny’s gone when Patrick opens his eyes and when he sits up to look around the room, it’s dark outside. Blake moans quietly and shifts beside him, waking up slowly.

“What time is it?” she asks, voice scratchy. She knuckles at her eyes.

Patrick pulls out his phone from his pocket, forgetting it’s still dead. He hadn’t gotten a chance to charge it before he fell asleep. The alarm clock on the desk reads 8:44, and the bed is slightly rumpled, the pillow out of place like maybe Jonny was napping there at some point.

Patrick wants to sleep more, exhaustion tugging at him like a curling fog, making everything feel heavy and thick.

“Almost nine,” he says. “Where’s Jonny?”

Blake sits up. “He’s not here?”

“No.”

“Call him.”

“My phone’s still dead.”

“Well fuck,” she sighs. She scratches at her head, idly at first and then purposeful, like the itch won’t go away. “I need a shower. You think Pee-Jay would mind if I used his shampoo?”

Patrick snorts. “Use the whole bottle. I don’t give a shit.”

Blake slides off the beanbag chair and opens TJ’s dresser, searching through his underwear drawer without care. There’s a bag of weed, a box of condoms, a bottle of KY, a lighter, a bottle of ritalin, a few jockstraps that have seen better days, a pair of boxers with gold money signs all over them that Blake rolls her eyes at, a wad of ten and twenty dollar bills, and a one hitter. She shows Patrick all of this and they laugh at each consecutive item.

“Nah, gotta leave some for you,” she says. She throws Patrick a twenty from the wad of money she found. “This dude is so bland. Adderall but no molly? Guess I’ll have to find my own fun.”

She grabs the shower caddy from on top of the dresser, her bare feet padding to the door.

“Be right back.”

When she’s gone, Patrick stands and turns on the desk lamp, a golden glow filling the room in a low light. He turns to sit on the bed and take off his shoes, his socks melted to his feet by this point. He badly needs to wiggle them around, let fresh air hit his soles and toes. On the wall by the desk a piece of scrap paper is taped there, a note from Jonny.

_Going to find food.  
-J_

It makes sense, he’s probably hungry, they all are, but Patrick feels irritation pulling tight at the back of his neck and in the straining of his tense jaw. He stares at the note long enough his eyes cross and blur.

Blake’s return from the shower is sooner than expected, Patrick jerking at the sound of the door opening. She comes in wrapped in a towel, hair soaking wet and dripping everywhere. She drops the towel and begins to pat down her hair, her naked body shocking Patrick into an awkward coughing fit.

“What? Never saw some tits before?” she asks, smiling.

“Um.”

“I promise they don’t bite.”

Patrick nods, looking away. He sees the note again and tears it from the wall, balling it up in his hands and throwing it at the nearby trash can. It lands on the floor, predictably.

“What was that?”

“A message from Jonny. He went out to get food I guess.”

“I gotta go out too.”

Patrick forgets for a moment she’s still half undressed and whips his head back in her direction. She’s in her panties and T-shirt now. “What? Why? Where?”

“Have a few errands to run,” she says, pulling her shorts up. She folds her socks inside out before sitting down to lace up her boots. Her hair is still dripping drops of water, most of them catching on the back of her shirt. Everything about her looks softer in this instant, her hair a wet curtain down her back, her face young and bare, free from the black makeup she usually wears around her eyes and on her lips. When she flips on the overhead light and pulls out a bag, it takes only ten minutes for her to recreate the mask, every trace of that younger girl swept suddenly away.

“That’s...vague. Want to me to come with?”

“I’m okay, Angel. You stay and rest.”

“Call me if you need anything,” Patrick says, uneasiness coiling in his gut. 

She winks at him, blowing him a kiss as she slips out the door. “Don’t worry. I’m good.”

*

As soon as his phone is charged enough to turn on Patrick texts Jonny to see where he is. Another hour passes before he receives a response, a short ‘I’m on my way back now,’ and nothing more.

It pisses him off enough he doesn’t tell Jonny he’s going to shower, just grabs the shower caddy and a clean towel and goes.

He’s lucky no one is around. He’s not in the mood to field questions about who he is, or where he comes from, or deal with the stares of strangers. He undresses quickly and turns on the spray, jumping at the cold water and waiting as it slowly turns warm. Closing his eyes as the water sluices down his body, he can’t help but hum, shivering at the smell of the shampoo and the way it feels so fucking good to scrub at his head, the dirt and grime sliding from his skin like some kind of heaven. He wants to hate it because it’s TJ’s, but it smells so fresh, like what Patrick imagines the top of a mountain to be: snowy and crisp, and so much better than the dried sweat and funk he’s been carrying on himself for days.

The shower curtain opens and arms come around his middle. Patrick doesn’t have to look to know it’s Jonny, smelly too and hot to the touch, those hands and arms of his so familiar now it almost hurts Patrick not to turn into them.

“Hey,” Jonny says, kissing his neck. “You smell good.”

“Hey,” Patrick says stiffly. “You were gone for awhile.”

“I went to the union for food, didn’t have much luck. Walked around until I found a gas station. And I was on my way back when I passed by TJ coming out of the gym with some of his friends and they dragged me to a bar. I have food for you in the room.”

He grabs for the shampoo and squirts a more conservative amount into his palm than Patrick had as he begins to wash himself quickly, but efficiently.

“Okay,” Patrick mumbles.

Jonny finishes rinsing and pushes himself up against Patrick again, pulling their bodies together and rubbing his thickening dick against Patrick’s ass. The water makes everything slick and sweet, the ghost sensation of Jonny pressing into him makes Patrick shiver. Then he shifts away, shoving his face under the water and letting it beat down over him.

“You good?” Jonny asks. He sounds confused.

“Yeah.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Patrick says. He opens his mouth, sticks his tongue out as water pitter-patters over it.

Jonny steps up to him again, tucks his face against the nape of Patrick’s neck, his hands loose around Patrick’s ribcage. They sway like that until it all goes cold.

*

TJ’s in the room, spread out on his bed, when they emerge from the shower. He looks surprised to see them together, hair wet, Jonny’s hand lingering on Patrick’s back. He looks back down at his book he’s studying from, says, “There’s pizza if you’re hungry.”

The pizza box is sitting on TJ’s desk, beside a plastic bag of what Patrick guesses is the gas station food Jonny brought, a few bags of chips, a sandwich, a bottle of Gatorade. Patrick goes for the pizza first, stomach aching at the thought of warm food.

“Thanks, man!” Jonny says for the both of them. And Patrick’s just glad he doesn’t have to say it, maybe out of spite, maybe because his mouth is full.

They eat in silence while TJ studies, but Jonny doesn’t make it easy, on anyone. Patrick’s picking at his tangled hair, trying to stay quiet as Jonny tickles his feet. When he gets tired of Patrick kicking at him, trying to get him to quit, he balls up post it notes and throw them at TJ’s head until he laughs and throws them back at Jonny.

Patrick texts Blake to avoid their flirting. She doesn’t reply.

When TJ realizes Jonny isn’t going to let him get much studying done he turns on his TV and they watch ESPN until Patrick starts to drift off. He can hear them talking about when they were kids, sharing stories of some pee-wee team they both used to play on and funny stories of busting their asses on the ice and the way their friend Cody’s shithead dad liked to yell at them from the glass.

*

On Thursday, TJ doesn’t have class until noon. They all sleep until eleven, go eat an early lunch at the dining hall on TJ’s dime and then break off as TJ heads to class and he and Jonny circle back to the dorm. They sleep some more on the air mattress they inflated the night before, the television on as background noise. Patrick’s phone dings at one point around three in the afternoon and he picks it up to see that Blake’s finally responded.

**Blake:** Hey you

**Patrick:** Are you okay?

**Blake:** Of course! Made some money ;)

**Patrick:** Are you coming back?

**Blake:** Soon

**Patrick:** Soon?

**Patrick:** What? How soon?

She doesn’t answer and Patrick doesn’t feel that much better after having heard her from than before he did. The sinking feeling that she’s out there turning tricks sitting like acid at the back of his throat, making him want to throw up.

TJ doesn’t show back up until almost evening. They go to the Union this time, eating burgers that are probably crap but taste so good to Patrick after weeks of gas station snacks that he almost wants to whimper as he takes his last bite, shoveling all of his fries into his mouth afterwards.

TJ watches him with a mocking kind of amusement. “Might want to take a break before you choke, dude.”

“I’m hungry,” Patrick says, chewing. He takes a long sip of his Coke, sucking the liquid from the straw until he reaches air and ice.

TJ laughs. “Yeah, I can tell.”

“ _I’m hungry_ ,” Patrick continues, “because I haven’t eaten more than a few bags of chips and some granola bars in the last two weeks. Neither of us have. You’d be hungry if you were in my fucking shoes.”

“Um. Probably,” TJ says, but he looks less guilty and more irritated at being scolded than anything else.

The Union is full of noise and activity, the sounds of people eating, talking, and walking by fills the space around them. And causes the silence at their table to feel more pronounced. 

“Have some of my fries,” Jonny says, soft, taking his plate from the plastic tray and moving it to Patrick’s. 

Patrick hands it back. “I’m done.”

Jonny won’t take it, instead pushing it back toward Patrick, insistent. “I’m not gonna eat them so you have them.”

The worst part is that Patrick is still hungry, and tired; and he only wants to find a bed, to curl up around Jonny and sleep for the next week. He can’t do any of that, not with TJ around, not with TJ judging Patrick for something he’ll never understand while trying to monopolize the only person Patrick has left. 

So fuck him. Patrick’s been hungry before, will be again. He can handle it just fine.

He drops the plate of fries on his tray and pushes out of his seat. “I said I was done. I’m going for a walk.”

He doesn’t wait for anyone to try stopping him, just heads back the way they came in, stride swift and determined. 

“Whoa. What crawled up his ass,” TJ says as he’s rounding the corner, out of sight. He doesn’t hear what Jonny says in response and he’s glad, he doesn’t want to.

*

Patrick walks around campus until his feet start to ache, his stomach still grumbling, and his head foggy. He’s ready for sleep, but of course the door is locked when he gets back to TJ’s room. It takes him several tries to jimmy the lock, but eventually he makes it inside, collapsing on the air mattress and passing out within minutes.

He’s awoken later when Jonny makes a racket opening the door and shuffling into the room, his foot kicking the air mattress as he stumbles to slips off his shoes and climb on next to Patrick.

“Hey, baby, heyyyyy,” he says, words slurred and smile easy.

“Are you drunk?” Patrick asks, leaning up on his elbows.

Jonny snorts. “Pfffttt a lil bit.”

“Have fun at the party?”

“It was ‘kay. Missed you,” Jonny says, edging closer for a kiss.

Patrick leans back. “Did you?”

“Fuck yeah. Want you,” Jonny says, moving closer, tugging at Patrick’s shirt. “Want you with me.”

He smells like beer and sweat, his face flushed a pretty shade of red, the hollow of his throat glistening. Patrick wants so badly to be mad at him, to kick him away. But not as badly as he wants to shove his face into Jonny’s neck and lick his skin, pull him close so he can wrap all of his limbs around Jonny because he’s his - he’s Patrick’s.

_He’s mine._

Patrick swallows hard, scrubs a hand over his sleepy eyes. “I was here the whole time.”

Jonny frowns. “No. You left. At the Union.”

“Oh, so you noticed? I wasn’t sure,” he says, pissy.

Jonny cups his face, rubs a thumb over Patrick’s bottom lip. Patrick can feel him getting hard against his thigh. “Kiss me.”

It’d be so easy to give in. He wants to give in. He also wants to punch something or someone in the face. Preferably TJ. He wants them to be in their own place. He doesn’t want...he’s tired of sharing everything.

“Probably shouldn’t. TJ might come back any second and realize we aren’t _friends_.”

Jonny’s frown deepens, his brow furrowing. “We aren’t friends.”

“That’s how you introduced me.”

“When?” Jonny says. He sits up, more alert now.

“Yesterday.”

Jonny shakes his head like he’s trying to clear it from a haze. “I didn’t mean it like that. It’s just been awhile since we’ve seen each other. I was more worried about getting us a place to stay than explaining...things.”

Patrick stares at him silently.

“I don’t give a shit if he knows or cares,” Jonny says. “And he’s staying with a friend tonight. He gave us the room ‘cause he felt bad about earlier, at dinner.”

“He should feel bad,” Patrick murmurs. He tucks his arms around his middle.

Jonny smiles, eyes glowing in the dim light. “Are you jealous?”

“Did you ever fuck him? Before?” 

“No.”

“He wants you to.”

Jonny’s smile widens. “Welllllll, I want you,” he says, tugging Patrick’s arms free so he can pull him near, get Patrick underneath his body.

“Yeah?” 

“Patrick, yes,” Jonny says, and kisses him deep and dirty.

They make out for a while, rubbing against each other with their clothes on, sucking on each other’s lips. Until Jonny goes to unzip Patrick’s fly and is halted by Patrick’s hand around his wrist.

“I want you on your back,” he says, pushing Jonny into the air mattress. He shoves Jonny’s legs apart, working at the button on his jeans, undoing the zipper, then pulling them off, the boxer briefs next. He looks down at Jonny bare and open underneath him, his cock fat and pointed up toward his belly button.

Patrick runs the tips of his fingers up the length of him, thumb pressing at the slick head until Jonny bucks up and gasps.

“Get naked,” Jonny breathes, trying to reach for Patrick’s clothes. But Patrick doesn’t want his help, doesn’t want Jonny pawing at him in this moment. He wants Jonny right where he his, legs spread and waiting for Patrick, leaking for him, hungry for him.

He presses his palm flat to Jonny’s chest and pushes him back into the air mattress, pressing down hard, a warning to stay put. Jonny’s eyes flare, dark and glassy. He licks his lips, watching, still. Patrick takes the rest of his own clothes off in no particular hurry, letting Jonny watch him, those eyes of his tracking Patrick’s every movement. He’s hard too, strings of precome dribbling from his dick and leaving a trailing on the sheets as Patrick lowers himself between Jonny’s legs, as he begins to rut against Jonny’s balls and the stiff line of his cock.

One of his hands rakes over the back of Jonny’s skull and tugs at his hair, causing his neck to arch up as his head falls back. Patrick bites at his adam’s apple, sucks a deep mark over his pulse point.

“I don't want you to touch anyone else,” he says, low, harsh.

Jonny moans on the end of a laugh. “What? Like ever?”

Patrick bites at the fleshy muscle where Jonny’s shoulder joins his neck, reaches down to loop his hand around both of their dicks. “Fuck off.”

“Like how?” Jonny asks, palms squeezing at Patrick’s ass.

“You know,” Patrick says, an echo of an earlier conversation. A conversation they had in the hotel room back in Florida.

“Tell me anyway,” Jonny says, just like Patrick had whispered to him.

Patrick leans in closer, licks Jonny’s mouth as he takes him apart with his hands. “Like how you touch me.”

Jonny moans against his lips, spilling over Patrick’s fist and both of their dicks, arms and legs wrapped around Patrick tight enough to hurt. He revels in it, pushes into it, wants more.

“Only you,” Jonny says, leaving bruises on Patrick’s hips, scratches along his back. “Only me.”

Patrick comes with Jonny’s teeth scraping over his jaw.

*

It’s early afternoon the next day by the time they see TJ again. He knocks tentatively once before busting through the door and saying with a happy grin, “Pretty sure I just aced my econ final. Let’s go get wasted!”

This mostly entails splitting a bottle of vodka with TJ’s neighbor down the hall until it’s late enough they can hitch a ride with some girl to a house party on the ritzy side of town.

The houses are huge on the block they end up parking on, two or three stories tall with four car garages and manicured lawns, Mercedes parked in driveways. The house they go into has Greek letters on the outside and several guys wearing those same symbols on T-shirts inside. The music is thumping, practically shaking the walls it’s so loud, everyone walking around with a cup or bottle of alcohol in their hand, a few people already wasted enough they’re stumbling around.

TJ leads them through the front of the house to where most of alcohol is being stored in the dining room. The cheap stuff is in the kitchen, he says, and doesn’t take them that far.

A few of the guys, seniors maybe, although Patrick isn’t sure, look at him questioningly, like he’s too young. A few laugh. 

Jonny doesn’t notice. They don’t look at him the same way.

TJ shows them around once they have drinks, introducing Jonny to a couple of his teammates. One has that same Minnesota Gophers logo on his yellow T-shirt. It’s uglier the longer Patrick looks at it.

He walks around alone for awhile, tired of listening to Jonny and TJ reminisce about their youth hockey days. There’s a porch swing that isn’t occupied and he takes a seat on it, watching two guys on the front lawn try to hit on a group of girls walking by. They’re working double time to convince them to come join the party, but ultimately strike out as the girls continue on their way.

Patrick finishes his Jack and Coke, wanting more, but refuses to return inside. He pulls out his phone to check for messages from Blake, scrolling through their last text conversation when he hears a voice beside him.

“Looking for me.”

It’s Blake, standing on the porch next to him like she materialized out of thin air just because Patrick was thinking of her.

“Where the fuck have you been?” Patrick says, jumping out of his seat.

Blake smiles. “Around. Come with me.”

She doesn’t give him much of a choice, tugging on the sleeve of his shirt to get him to follow her off the porch and down the stairs, away from the house. 

“And go where?”

“Down the block. I have a surprise for you,” Blake says, vague as usual.

Patrick hesitates. “Maybe I should tell Jonny.”

“He’ll be fine. Come on.”

She urges him on, further down the sidewalk. The houses they’re passing only seem to get bigger the farther they walk, mini mansions with gates around their yards, perfectly manicured lawns, monogrammed mailboxes. They stop near an alcove on the same street, Blake’s left hand around Patrick’s wrist as she leads him through an unlocked gate and into the backyard of one of the more extravagantly sized houses on the block.

“What the hell are we doing?” Patrick whispers, pulling his arm back. He looks around to see if anyone is watching them, if anyone is about to come around the corner and call the cops.

Blake smiles. “Breaking and entering.”

“Uh.”

“I’m just fucking with you,” she laughs. “I have the key.” 

At the entrance to the back door, she punches a keycode into the keypad above the doorknob and waits for it to clickover, then slips a key in the top lock to clear the deadbolt. She steps inside, tugging Patrick with her.

“How’d you get a key?” 

She kicks off her shoes by the mudroom, then backtracks towards the kitchen, opening the fridge and pulling out a bottle of sparkling water, one of her, then another for Patrick. She tosses it to him, sticking her head back in the fridge and rummaging around like she owns the place, like she’s been here before.

“I was out the other night and this john picked me and brought me back to his house while his wife was out. We fucked, he felt bad after, yadda yadda. But then later when I was blowing him he was moaning about how good my mouth was, how he wished he could take me to Milan instead of his wife for the next two weeks, and I just thought, hey, free crashpad while they’re gone. Then I remembered to write down the security code I saw him use when he let us in the house, swiped one of his keys and TA-DA!”

She punctuates this last statement with a little shimmy, then retrieves some bread, lunchmeat, cheese, and mustard. She lays out the food on the butcher block and begins to assemble it.

“Holy shit,” Patrick says, impressed. His stomach is grumbling at the sight of food, and yet knowing they’re here because Blake had to sell herself makes something roll sickly inside of him. He wants to say something, but he doesn’t know what to say. He’s made choices he otherwise wouldn’t have if not for the need to get by, to simply survive. He’s no better, but he wishes it didn’t have to be like this, that there was some other way.

“Welcome to our new abode. For a limited time anyway.”

She slaps together a sandwich for Patrick quickly, handing it over and then putting the food back instead of making one for herself, like she knew somehow he was starving.

“This place is huge.”

“There are security cameras in the backyard so we can’t go out to the pool or anything, but check this shit out upstairs.”

Patrick takes his sandwich with him as he follows her through the kitchen, taking huge bites as they walk through the living room, to the stairs. The foyer is half as big as his grandpa’s house, the family room off to the side even bigger, holding a fireplace and flat screen TV so large Patrick’s only ever seen something similar in the movies.

They don’t investigate downstairs beyond that, Blake guiding Patrick down a long hall on the second floor, one that leads them to what looks to be like the master bedroom, a large king-sized bed in the middle of the room, neatly made. There’s a walk-in closet with mirror doors and a huge ensuite bathroom with two sinks, a bedee, a glass shower, and a jacuzzi.

“A jacuzzi,” Patrick says. He isn’t sure he’s ever seen one of these in person either.

“I know!” Blake claps, hopping in place happily. “Let’s try this bitch out.”

*

Patrick’s submerged in warm water, head tilted back against the porcelain tub when he hears a phone buzz. He cracks an eye open to see Blake across the jacuzzi from him in her bra and panties, typing on her phone. When she’s finished she clicks over to play some music, a soft lilting song as the water steams up around them and makes Patrick feel languid and drowsy. His belly isn’t aching for the first time in the last twenty-four hours and the heat like a blanket has his muscles loosening, relaxing.

He maybe falls asleep for awhile, only startled back into wakefulness when he hears someone enter the bathroom and turns to see it’s Jonny, an amused grin curled at the corner of his mouth.

“Should I be worried about the cops showing up at any minute?” he asks.

“Nope. We’re all good,” Blake says, and pulls a bottle of wine up to her lips to take a drink. Patrick’s not sure where or when she found that. 

“Awesome,” Jonny says, stripping out of his clothes until he’s down to his boxer briefs. “Make room for me!”

He slides in behind Patrick, sloshing water over the edge of the jacuzzi and all over the place, up into Patrick’s face. It’s a tight fit with the three of them all squished together, but none of them care, passing the bottle back and forth until everyone is a little tipsy.

Later, when Patrick’s drying off, one soft, black fluffy towel around his waist and another around his shoulders, he walks back into the master bedroom to find Blake eating from a pre-made cheese platter, spread out on her belly on the bed.

“You should try some of this fancy cheese. It’s got like cranberries and shit in it.”

Jonny’s half naked and rifling through the owner’s nightstand, hoping to find what, Patrick doesn’t know.

“I like the fancy meat better, to be honest,” Patrick says, slipping on his pants beneath his towel, his wet boxers still drying in the bathroom. He grabs the TV remote on the bed beside Blake and begins flipping channels, then idly snatches a piece of brie and pops it in his mouth.

Blake snorts. “You would.”

Patrick steals the slice of blue cheese from her fingertips and eats that too, laughing when she smacks at his bare ribs.

“Hey, look what I found,” Jonny says.

There isn’t a bottle of prescription pain pills in his hand, or a bag of weed, or even a dildo, like Patrick’s expecting. The kinds of things people hide away in their secret drawers that most others never get to see. It’s not a wad of cash, or a credit car, which would be even better.

It’s a handgun, silver barreled with a black grip, and when Jonny releases the magazine inside, Patrick sees that it’s loaded as well.


End file.
